ASU is A Go Go

Alright.

So, as much as I was secretly hoping for the ASU competition to fall through so that we would not be destroyed, they replied with a confirmation. To top that off, we will be going against Scottsdale Community College and ASU. To top that off further, we will also be going up against Embry Riddle. I DO NOT want to be destroyed by them. They will secretly hold it against us for years to come. I keep being told that this will be "a great learning experience." I already know that we will be destroyed. There is nothing to learn if I'm already aware of it. Secondly, you learn nothing from being annihilated. It just leaves an awful failure feeling in the end. As such, I am super nervous. Even more so because I am being peer and mentor pressured into attending the competition. I am not even allowed to contemplate on my own. The only comfort I have is that our t-shirts will be the most awesome shirts at the competition.

Now to recap on this week:
1 robot is officialy in working condition. Woo! It is stable the buttons and motors work. Everythings okay. I almost cried. The other robot however is in a half alive state. It can drive if it wanted to and it has potential. But is it anywhere near proper operating condition? No, not really. As the last day comes upon us, I really wonder if we can make this happen. This will have to be a cooperative effort, which we are not the best at. I wish I could tell you guys more. However the secrecy factor prevents me from saying much of what has gone on. Tune in next week to hear the results of our match. Send positive thoughts!

Next week I'll be working on mazes.

I Apologize

In all honesty I completely forgot to post for the last two weeks. I have, however, been making tremendous progress in robotics. I set out to design a lift for our robot. Without mentioning any specifics, I can say that my first design was thrown away. I was a little sad but it wasn’t as versatile as we needed to be. Plus, we only had 15 inches height wise to work with. So, I scrapped that idea and decided to move onto another lift design.
 

This did not come easily. Because I am new to the vex world, I had absolutely no idea of where the possibilities of lifts lie. I turned to the internet and, with Josh's help, found a variety of lift ideas. Again I can't provide details but after a whopping 6 hours of work, I had a lift. I was very proud of my accomplishment. However, after going to robotics club I found that my lift was extremely difficult to mount to a chassis. On top of that, I had already used up the allotted 15 inches for length. This makes it very hard to build the rest of the robot. So, we decided that building a new chassis around the lift would be best.
 

That is my most significant accomplishment over the past 2 weeks. I also helped fortify our other robot but in the end, we took it all down and restructured it. It has been frustrating.  The most frustrating event of all however is that ASU has yet to co tact us confirming the competition. This means that my hard work may have all been for naught. I am sad.
 

Also, my progress with the mazes has come to a halt. I have been doing nothing but building this whole time so I suppose I'll have time if ASU falls through.

This is actually a maze