President: Irene Wang
Public Relations 1: Lisa Lee
Public Relations 2: Colleen Chan
Grants Writer: Aman Gupta
Finances Officer: Keely Zhang
Webmaster: Siddhant Dange

Congratulations! And keep your schedules open in the coming weeks for transition meetings as we close off the school year and open a new one.

Application Process:

As you’ve probably seen with the previous post with the embedded application, you’ll be filling out the form and scheduling an interview with us. Simple enough, but here’s where the fun part [for us, not for you] kick in. This year, we’ve decided to include a nice little project for you daring fellows. From the interview, we’ll decide which position(s) you’d probably be most suited for, keeping in mind your own interests. For example, the artsy-fartsy student won’t be trying out for tech guy while the tech-y one will, obviously, probably not be a grant writer. So on so forth.

Apart from that tangent, let’s continue on: You’ll be given a neat little project for you to complete in the interests of testing your capabilities and work ethic as these are qualities that can’t be measured by a simple application. You will have all the way until the end of AP testing (May 18th at 3:00 PM to be precise) to finish your project and send it in. Don’t worry! it won’t be extremely hard. We know you guys are busy with SATs and APs, etc.

After that’s over, we’ll go over the projects then call you guys in for a final go-over, and it’ll be done. It sounds convoluted and hard, but that’s only because we described in such detail (to your benefit obviously)

And now the positions:
President:

Will be chosen by this year’s officer team. Applications for this position will not be possible (as you should have seen from the app).  If you feel that you have the potential to be a competitive candidate for this position, contact the CHS Robotics Officer team at chs.frc.robotics@gmail.com

Public Relations 1 and 2:

This position has been split in 2 mainly because it encompasses almost everything of the club itself. This include taking meeting notes, organizing fundraisers, club’s day, rallies, and all that jazz.

suggested qualities: Being organized since, more often times than not, these activities involve paperwork and immense amounts of planning. Having a connection with ASB or Class Council is a plus. Being artsy fartsy is also a plus since PR will be in charge of spirit related items like club t-shirts, making flags, bandannas, and painting or making decorations for whatever FRC/FTC want/need.

Grant Writer:

The name is a bit self-explanatory. Grants are a vital part of the club. The money we get from grants is what basically powers us. This officer will be in charge of writing and sending in grants to major companies like Google, IBM, Symantec, Jacobs etc.

suggested qualities: The organizational skills of a god (read: Paperwork), great writing skills, and a good sense of when to push and when not to (in dealing with people that know more than you, make more money than you, and can make your life h***)

Finance:

The finances officer will assist Mr. Williams in dealing with team finances. This includes maintaining records of all purchases and expenditures on parts, software, and other items either the club or the teams buy. This also includes filling out the paperwork for all of these transactions.

suggested qualities: Organization, trustworthiness, accountability, excellence with MS Excel or similar industry standard spreadsheet program.

Tech Guy:

This guy (see what I did there?) will be in charge of the tech issues such as sending out club emails, updating the lovely, lovely website, etc. The trial for this one will be relatively simple. You’ll have a nice sit down with Nathan, our resident dragon, and talk about what you know and don’t know. Never fear! He doesn’t bite. Usually.

suggested qualities: Know how to work with WordPress 3.3.1+, MediaWiki 1.6+ (Wikipedia like wiki), and MailMan 2.1+, know HTML, CSS, FTP, and MySQL

Phew! Hope you finish reading that, and you will because we are awesome, and you are awesome, and my writing is awesome. Like a possum. If you have any questions, leave a comment below, or, for faster reply, click on the little green light on fb/gmail of an officer and ask the question! XD

Let the Games begin. May the odds be ever in your favor.

There will be a meeting this Thursday, and it is strongly recommended (we HIGHLY URGE) that you attend!
We will be taking our picture for the Yearbook, so make sure you appear prim and proper (and awesome).
The very wise among you will remember to wear our CHS Robotics apparel, whichever you choose to bring, as long as they are emblazoned with our branding.

To recap,
-Meeting Thursday
-Yearbook picture will be taken, no gang signs please
-Wear your Robotics shirts

Schedule for next two weeks:
Version 2 concepts (including target modifications, testing procedures, and practice schedules) by 2/29
CAD by 3/2
Parts by 3/7
Assembled robot by 3/9

Version 2.0 needs to focus on camera and drive training. Needs to weigh approximately the same as Version 1.0 and have similar center of gravity. Does not need a turret, but needs a basic ball scoop. Needs a ramp pushdown. Needs a rotatable camera (similar to version 1.0 style). Needs basic bumper. Needs to use either DUSTY IV computer system or rebuild of DUSTY V computer system. Needs to utilize only 3 Jaguars, 2 spikes, and 2 Victors. (est. jaguars for camera and drivetrain, spike for lights, victors for pushdown and pickup.)

Code should be minimally affected, so as to prevent major rewrites. Electrical systems should stay entirely compatible.

Targets need to be modified so that all four targets can be erected within the lab. May require legs to be shortened.

Three weeks ago, we had serious doubts about the ability of this robot to do anything.  Today’s trials showed that this robot can put a ball on the target fairly reliably.  Under manual control, we achieved 90% accuracy, often shooting a ball into the hoop on the first try, and repeating that feat several times immediately after from multiple different positions on the field.  Under automatic control, we’ve achieved around 70% accuracy, but always hitting around the hoop.

The next few weeks will be tiring.  We will create a second robot for practice in two weeks, and we will finish ironing out the bugs within the auto-align code.  It is very much possible that this robot will be a strong competitor in the Silicon Valley Regional.

Schedule:
Sunday: 1:30 PM – 6:30 PM
Monday: 9:00 AM – 7:00 PM
Tuesday: 9:00 AM – Ship
Wednesday: 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM

The goal is for all software to be complete (calibration included) so that Tuesday and the latter half of Monday can be devoted to drive training. That means the robot must be driveable, the shooter must have PID active, the turret can auto-align, the pickup can auto-pickup and actuate the ball gate/ramp pushdown, and the ramp pushdown and self-center works.