Mother nature hit the midwest hard earlier this week. Between 12 and 15 inches hit our area Tuesday night that resulted in two straight snow days for our school district. We were unable to work or meet both Wednesday and Thursday and consequently, our schedule has been pushed back while we have been trying to catch up. While it was great to get a break from school, it’s never good to lose time during this frantic, six week build season.

The Chassis Team tested the chassis with the Controls & Electronics Team and determined that the speeding and turning capabilities were excellent.
The Mechanism/Manipulator & Arm Team has fabricated much of the upper arm. They are working extra today (Sunday) to weld and create the cross-bracing for the two upper arm pieces. The specifics of the manipulator are still being worked out, but Mr. Garstick has a CAD model and a prototype.
The Above Chassis Team continued building their deployment mechanism. However, Mr. Clark and Mr. McBride are still working on the release mechanism for it. Mr. Bolewitz and Mr. Pirozzo worked with several students on the Minibot.
The Field Team, like the Chassis Team, has moved into other teams to help complete tasks.
The Programming Team continued programming the base and working with the line trackers. They have been doing all they can do with the arm prototype but are hoping to be able to work on the actual arm next week.
The Controls & Electronics Team worked on fixing a buggy line tracker and creating the system signal and wiring diagram to keep track of what goes where.
The Marketing & Website Team finished uploading all the old newspaper articles and updated the Team Recognition page to include them. We also started uploading Becky Everson‘s season wrapup videos to include in our Media Gallery. During the week and on Saturday, many people also helped create the team buttons that will be handed out at competitions. Mr. Hildebrandt has also ordered the pvc and other materials that will be used to construct the pit.
The Project Management Team wrote many of the sections of the business plan independently this week. We met Saturday afternoon and we decided that we will be finishing during this coming week and possibly start editing next Saturday.

Related Media: Build Season – Week 4

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