Week 4 and 5 blog posts

Unfortunately I got busy and didn't share our students' blog posts, so we get a double post today.
WEEK 4
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Week four has passed, and Pearadox is hunkering down for the start of crunch time and the end of build season. Our team has been very occupied with assembling parts of the robot together to prepare to send off to be water jetted or welded, and non-technical parts of the team are preparing for the sound of competition season coming around the corner. On Tuesday, we were quite busy, with members from the team visiting the Microsoft store in Baybrook Mall to present to members and the public about our team and to secure a potential partnership for the coming years. While that was occurring, memebers at the facility where building parts to the robot and programming, while also having to discuss with multiple tour groups containing 8th graders stopping by our room about STEM, and the advantages of Pearadox. It was quite busy, and a great experience for team members to rack up on public speaking and public outreach. Base has milled and put together the competition frame of the robot, which has been sent off to be welded by our sponsors. Programming has been occupied fixing the PCM of one of our practice bots, doing PID tuning, and as well exploring future programming languages to use later in the future. The collector team has been occupied with conceptualizing a smaller static intake for use, while the manipulator team has been assembling a claw mechanism, and has mounted/assembled the parts that were sent to waterjet earlier in the week. Milling cuts are being made on the arm. Chairmans has finished main editing of the essay and short answers, and is committing final revisions and outside readings to ensure everything is good before submitting. The business team has finished the rough SARs for the submission and diagrams; revising is occurring. Imagery is also setting into high gear, with shirt designs, buttons, and an ambitious pit design being made for this year. We can’t wait to reveal that when it is competition time! Team Pearadox is now entering the final weeks of build season, and with that, we expect to be able to have a robot prepared for competition by bag day. Until next time!

P.S. If you haven’t already, check out our great new video here. Enjoy!

​WEEK 5
Its week five, and Pearadox has been occupied in constructing parts/assembling them on our robot to be prepared for bag day. We had a guest team, team 6645, at our facility during the weekend; it was a great time for both teams to see what can be done working together, and we assisted their robot construction. Base has been occupied making competition gearboxes and wheels, and is assembling the competition base parts bit by bit. Information leading up to final creations of each robot subsystem is being recorded, so that it may be placed in the teams tech binder for future robotics members to look back upon previous team designs. Programming has been occupied placing encoders on the practice robot, and designing rough autonomous modes that could be used in the future. They have been also occupied on refining PID loops, which will come in handy for moving the robot around in autonomous more precisely. The manipulator subsystem has been occupied in testing out the design they created, and are currently making a new claw for the current claw manipulator that will be used to grab cubes. The collector subsystem has been occupied in prototyping on a new, low-profile collector to rapidly collect cubes and allow the claw manipulator to work in unison with it. The electrical team has been occupied on making electrical boards so that everything can be wired neatly and be easier to maintain during competitions. The chairmans team has submitted the chairmans essay and short answers after many weeks of toiling, and is now moving on to preparing for presentations at competitions and doing public relations projects to help spread the Pearadox name. Business team has finished for the most part their short answers and statistics, and expect to finish on time for the submission deadline all revised materials. With the end of build season looming, Pearadox rushes to make the deadline on time. While we may have progressed farther than before, we know the road to success at competitions is only just beginning. Until next update!