The EngiNERDs have added a large calendar in our work area this season where each section posts when they expect to complete major tasks such as end effector design complete or chassis build complete.   There are other major items noted such as when additional materials need to be ordered and the ever looming robot ship date.  It's a great communication tool where everyone can see what's expected to be complete in the upcoming week.  Some sections may be dependent on deliverables from other sections in order to complete theirs.

A deliverable is a term used in project management to describe a tangible or intangible object produced as the result of the project.  A deliverable can be the end product or a building block to the end product.  In technical projects, deliverables are often the completed hardware, software or design documents.

Section Leaders- Keep posting those deliverables!

Pam

28 days 2 hours left...

Howdy, folks! I’m Colin or Canada, and I’m in charge of the electrical wiring department for the team as a freshman, so this is my first year on the team. We're 17 days in to the season, and it's been pretty interesting so far. We're gotten a lot done - the end effector team has had three different prototypes for kicking the ball, and we've have built our second chassis. Right now, it seems like most of the teams we have are gearing up for the actual build - almost everyone's designing their final ideas using our ] CAD software, Inventor, which we got for free (thank you FRC and Autodesk!), including me. I'm working on the layout of our main electrical board, and Brancheau (Ryan, one of our co-captains) and Clint (one of our head mentors) have proposed two slightly-out-of-the-box ideas that should work perfectly.

Hopefully I'll finish the layout before Saturday, but I don't know how much time I'll be able to put to it. We have midterms this week at school, and tomorrow are my two, big, tough subjects: Algebra II and Honors Science. The rest of my schedule should be nice.

I'll see you next week!

-Canada

Entry 1: Starting to Build

The 2010 FIRST Robotics Competition season has officially begun! Team 2337 attended their local kickoff at Kettering University in Flint, Michigan. After the official game announcement, the EngiNERDs attended a strategy brainstorming session. Kettering University was Gracious enough to lend the EngiNERDs a classroom in the Academic Building for this meeting. A special thanks goes out to Bob Nichols for the wonderful accommodations.

The purpose of this brainstorming session was to discover all of the possible game play strategies for the 2010 FIRST Robotics Competition game, Breakaway. Students of Team 2337 played a board game specifically tailored for Breakaway, designed by one of the Team’s Mentors, Clinton Bolinger. The intention was to allow students the opportunity to immerse themselves into the game, and create an environment where the best strategy will win, rather than the best robot design.

After reading the manual to better understand the rules of Breakaway, students used pawns to represent robots, and bingo chips to represent game pieces. Throughout the afternoon, students worked in pairs to develop strategies that could be translated into the game play, and eventually into the actual design of the Team’s Robot. 

Students used the knowledge that they gained during their participation in game play  to come up with a list of Robot functions and game strategies and ranked them according to their agreement with the Team's overall goals. As the build season progresses, the EngiNERDs will refer back to the list of strategies and robot functions to ensure that the final designs and prototypes will meet the goals set. This list will provide the Team with a starting and end point during the build season, and allow them to set goals for deliverables and completion dates on various projects.

The EngiNERDs left their brainstorming session with a stomach full of pizza and Mountain Dew, and a great strategy for Breakaway. They are excited to see how the build season progresses, and how the strategies that were developed align with the 2010 FIRST Robotics Competition game. The hope is that this brainstormong session will have produced enough knowledge and strategies to guide the EngiNERDs to a successful season. 

 Please continue to check back with the Team's site to discover more about our plans and activities for the 2010 FIRST Robotics Competition season, Breakaway. Also remember to read our new student blog section. This new feature includes articles written by team Student members and Mentors, describing their roles, responsibilites and experiences with Team 2337 throughout the 2010 season. Best of luck to all Teams!

Get Your EngiNERDs Apparel!

The 2010 EngiNERDs screen-printed apparel order form is now available! Team 2337's t-shirts are available to all friends and family of the EngiNERDs, in both Men's and Women's fits. Don't forget to check out our new selection of Hooded Sweatshirts!

Please print this Optional Team Apparel Order Form and turn it in, along with your payment, to Brandi Bolinger on or before February 1, 2010. Orders will be returned by March 1, 2010. A size run is available at Premier Tooling Systems, see Brandi to be sized.

A second order, which will include our embroidery items will be made available at a later date. Please check back for additional details, and contact Brandi with any questions.

 Hello!

            Currently the team is working on building prototypes and deciding which idea works the best for our strategy. We have also been building a field for practice. Yesterday we ran a prototype robot on our field which went pretty well.

     Today we are trying out a team building idea which one of our students came up with, Big Brother Big Sister. The students weere placed into two categories Bigs and Littles. The bigs are students that have been on our team in previous years and littles are students that are new to our team. Each student chose three other students, the littles picked bigs and vice versa. The reasoning behind this strategy is to give the new members an opportunity to work with an older member on whatever it may be that they acquire help on.

The students just finished building the tower and it looks wonderful.  The tower took two days to build the whole tower.  One of the students was taught how to weld while in the process of building the tower.

Jordan Nickola,

Official Team Nerdling

Each year, the students on the Grand Blanc High School Robotics Team are given opportunities to reduce the cost for participation on the team. This year, from November 23 through December 7, the EngiNERDs will be selling Little Caesar's Pizza Kits to help alleviate these costs. If you are interested in purchasing any of the available Little Caesar's Pizza Kits, please see any student member of the team for an order form. 

Please assist the EngiNERDs in helping the Ronald McDonald House by pulling your pop can tabs!

"Pulling Together for Faith" is a community-wide effort to help a little girl named Faith collect pop can tabs. Faith is the Cousin of one of the Grand Blanc High School Robotics Team members. She has been considered an honorary team member since The EngiNERDs' rookie year in 2008. Faith lives in the Saint Louis area, and is proud to be a member of the Grand Blanc High School Robotics Team.

Can tabs are collected by the EngiNERDs year-round, and given to Faith each  May. Along with the help of her family, Faith donates her pop can collection to Ronald McDonald house to help alleviate some of the costs associated with operation of the House.

With the assistance of the Grand Blanc High School Robotics Team, Faith was able to collect over 56,000 tabs in 2009. If you placed all of the can Tabs end-to-end, they would stretch just short of one mile. When weighed, the tabs would amount to about 40 pounds.

Our goal is to increase the amount of tabs collected each year. We hope to provide Faith with more than 100 pounds of tabs in May of 2010. Please consider joining our efforts, and "Pull Together for Faith."

For more information on how to help Ronald McDonald house, please visit the Ronald McDonald House Charities website. To join the Pull with the EngiNERDs, and help Faith, please visit our Pulling Together for Faith information.

 The EngiNERDs have been busy preparing for the up-coming competition season, with repairs to previous years' robots, additions to our meeting facility, design and production of our summer project, "Dog Bot" as well as several other projects. We are also in the process of further development of our safety program, and the installation of our new photography and videography group!

Throughout the months of October, November, and December, we encourage students, family, friends and mentors to attend a meeting to see what the Grand Blanc High School Robotics Team is all about.