01-01-10: HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

12-25-09: Game Hint ?

12-20-09: Installed and tested the air suspension.  It was functional but needs more design to make feasible.  It loses air pressure as it sits for awhile and would need a higher pressure to make it more solid.

12-14-09: The latest design idea, air suspension. This design will allow the front to stay at the required height and still allow the front to pivot up when square to a ramp. If going up a ramp on an angle one unit will go up while air will force the other to go down.

12-10-09: Our third design of our mech/suspension is assembled. Nic and Ryan were test driving it at our Thursday meeting. This design is easier to assemble and works very well.

12-3-09: Welcome new members. Some new students have joined our team and have added to the high quality of our team. This years team seems to be very committed and willing to build a top notch robot for competition. We are working with them on drive designs, arm designs, electrical, pneumatics, and programming.

11-22-09: The White Wolves had a great competition and won two trophies, one for robot design and one for performance. We wanted to achieve a perfect score like we did during our practices but the gremlins came out during our runs. It was great fun. More Pictures

11-07-09: The white wolves have completed their missions and now only need to get fine tune their play. View the mission.

11-06-09: completed the Omni wheel hubs and assembled one.

11-05-09:Thursday we had a good showing of new students. We worked on the new drive system and also lathed out new Omni wheel hubs.

09-26-09: Our team did a robotics demonstration at Vic Canever Chevrolet. We also placed a large amount of Lego's on the floor for kids to play with. There was games, slides, food and much more for kids to have fun with.

09-19-09: We won three out of five games and the robot worked well. It was fun as always. We did not get picked for the finals even though we finished 18th out of 42. We need to work on selling ourselves better.

09-17-09: Our team helped set up the Kettering Kick off, setup the pit area and practice field. Joe got beat up by a table and received a black eye but he is all better now.

09-16-09: The first Lego meeting went well, field is assembled and are now working on the strategy.

09-15-09: Getting the bugs out of the new design for the robot. Still having trouble with the floor pick up, we need more room for a larger pick up wheel but will work around it and have it ready.

08-22-09: The team went over the robot to modify it for Kettering Kick Off (9-19-09). Adding floor pick up and multi direction delivery.

Off for the Summer

04-30-09: Joe worked on the buggy during April. More pictures

03-09-09: Kettering University was great fun. Although we did not finish high in ranking our robot did not break down and our drivers did a great job. There was about five games that we won but lost from alliance penalties, so the low ranking does not do justice on how well we did. We actually would have been picked because of our outstanding driving but teams that were going to pick us were picked right away. Our human player did a great job scoring and our robot scored well also. We chased down many high scoring robots and pinned them so they could not score and kept our trailer away from the other alliance. We did not let down our alliance at all and that is something to be proud of.  More Pictures

03-02-09: We had a great weekend at Traverse City. We finished well and were ask to play in the finals. The matches that we lost we close except the ones where our partners had many penalties. The robot did not break once. The team was great and we had no trouble with them. We were shown on a local TV news at http://www.upnorthlive.com/news/video.aspx?id=267073

More Pictures

02-17-09: Ship Day, Bag it up and store it day.

02-15-09: Week Six and we are complete. We need to tweak the camera distance program but that is it.

02-8-09: Week Five and we thought we were ready.
We just found out that we can not use casters on the robot.
Even though they are free wheeling apparently they are in violation of <R-06>.

Who thought that a caster is a traction device. We disagree but how can you fight it?
We took our robot over to Lake Fenton High School and did some practicing.
Learned allot and will make necessary modifications. Nice Troy...More Pictures

02-1-09: Week four just flew by. We drove the robot, tested the ball shooter and it works fine...More Pictures

01-24-09: End of week one, wow!!! students are awesome.
They have been very competent with the jobs that are given them.
We are ahead of schedule because of their abilities. More Pictures

01-17-09: Near end of week 3 and we are doing well...More Pictures

01-11-09: Attended Baker College to meet with local teams to go over ideas about
the game and building ideas.

01-03-09: New game released, guess we will wait until next year to use the new drive system.
Nice idea for the new game, Kind of like asteroids video game.
Ground control to Major Tom FRC has gone to the moon.

01-02-09: Proto type has been tested...Video

01-01-09: New control system has been tested and we are ready to roll.

12-30-08: Worked on the test robot, drive works as predicted. Suspension works great.

12-14-08: At the State Lego competition our White Wolves did a wonderful job.
The robot  did not function as hoped but the students did thier job well.
They did great on technical (low robot scores affected scoring),
Team work they could not have done better(we were surprised we did not win),
The project was awesome with many excellent scores (we thought we would win)
but one item was marked very low on the scoring sheet and that item is what got
us to the State Championship. Strange that we did not get any call backs?

11-23-08: Our Lego robotics team the White Wolves did great at the
FIRST Lego competition on November 22. They have won a space in the state finals.
There project was creative enough to place them, and with receiving a perfect score
in teamwork they placed third over all out of 40 teams. The robot score was above
average and technical was awesome.  Congratulations !!!

11-6-08: 2009 test drive is built...More Pictures/Videos

11-5-08: Last Lego meeting before the practice competition.

9-20-08: Kettering Kick off - We did great, probably our best showing yet.
We managed to rank 4th place out of 42 teams.

This allowed us to proceed into the finals. In the finals we tied the first round,
lost by just a few points in the second and lost by two in the third round. Our drivers did a great job and the whole team was wonderful.
The experience did wonders for the team and gives us a great start of for the 2009 season.

9-13-08: We set up a display at a local car dealerships grand opening. Displayed Lego's and FRC robots.

9-4-08: Troy worked on the claw with a different design.

8-28-08: Eric and Joe made a drawing of a mecanum wheel that we can build for our test drive.

8-14-08: We will be starting meetings on Thursday September 4, 2008 to get ready for the Kettering Kick off. We also need to talk about recruiting more members and finding new sponsors for parts.

8-13-08: Joe worked on the hand. Still has issues to resolve. The fingers don't move evenly.

8-13-08: Field elements for the Lego field are here. Next Wednesday at 7 pm we will have a Lego meeting to start assembly.

8-13-08: Joe and Troy worked on the hand project. Cut the fingers and the pulleys for the knuckles.

8-08-08: Here was a drawing to help understand the suspension

8-04-08: Worked on the 2009 drive drawings

8-04-08: Check out some of the drawings for the 2009 drive system at TECH TIPS, Ideas underdevelopment

7-30-08: Eric and Joe worked on the 2009 drive system. A 6 wheel drive omni bot. Because of the gear set up you will not have to worry about it turning  as you drive straight. The motor will be going the same direction making it track straight. This system will also have a suspension.

7-29-08: Troy showed up for a meeting and we worked on a robotic hand idea. Joe made a working model of a hand and used that to design from. We hope to make two and attach them to arms on an old robot that we can control with our own hands and arms. An extension of our own hands.

6-17-08: The Lego students met with J. R. Kirtech the weather man from WJRT TV12 to discuss the weather and climate change.

6-14-08: Car Wash was a great success, washed allot of cars, and received some good donations. We also had some great tacos donated from Taco Bell. Check out the pictures at car wash . Check out this video

6-11-08: Prep meeting for this weekends car wash, only Joe and Troy showed up. We made a couple

of signs, we were hoping some one with a artistic ability would have showed up. We also rewired the

old omni robot.

5-25-08: Buggy Fun from this weekend

5-19-08: New control system for 2009.   CLICK IMAGE FOR LINK

5-16-08: Video of robot claw working automatic. http://www.team1322.org/video.htm

5-13-08: Programmed the robot IR sensor and the claw to operate. Programmed the old omni robot to work again in all directions. We will be practicing driving it, the 2009 robot will use the same drive program.

5-11-08: Installed IR sensor for detecting the ball when its in position to grab.

5-02-08: We are thinking about entering a float in the 4th of July to bring in some new members. If any body is interested in helping please contact us through our contact page. We will need a truck to pull the trailer.

5-01-08: Connected a solenoid to the arm lift pneumatic so we can stop it at mid position. We are having trouble with the radio so we set up the old omni drive robot to check out if its the radio or programming. Also the students can get use to omni drive for the up coming 2009 season. Troy hung Ryan's shoe in a tree. Troy snagged Giggles shoe and gave it to Ryan and the chase was on. After 10 minute of running we got back to working on the robot.

4-18-08: We want to congratulate Troy for winning the Kettering University scholarship. This is a very large scholarship for him and will help him go a long way at Kettering University. With his proven ability with our team and his common sense knowledge he has a great chance of becoming very successful with his goals in life.

4-12-08 - 4-17-08: Rebuilt the arm, we are now using a pneumatic to lift the arm, and to grab and release the ball. This should make the ball easier to work with. It will also give us a place to install a over pass sensor to release the ball at the correct time.

4-11-08: Joe solved the traction problem with omni directional system and is now designing it for the 2009 season. Not only does this give us more traction it will also give us a suspension that will work on ramps. The secret design (except to team members) should win the highly sought after design award.

4-10-08: We started an off season project.

        2008 Robot Build Pictures

3-28-08: We ranked 56 out of 63. Probably our worst showing ever at Great Lakes. Its not last place but we can do much better. I believe our drivers need to practice more before the events and learn the rules better.  We scored well but lost to penalties. Even with the poor showing we did learn from this and will change and do better for the Kettering fall event. We will look for drivers that WANT to practice every chance they get so we can do well this fall.

3-28-08: Our scores are not high and we are not winning games. We are having fun and enjoy working on the robot. We were hoping to win the web site award but fell short of that goal.

3-27-08: Great Lakes Regional Practice day; Practice went well, the robot was working good. The drives had to get use to the robot and learn to play the game. Programming the hybrid mode is giving us trouble.

3-08-08: Michigan Rookie Event at Kettering University ran flawlessly today. The game was good and the teams learned a lot.

3-07-08: Michigan Rookie Event at Kettering University was very interesting today, it was a lot of work inspecting the rest of the robots. With all being rookies the majority of them did not pass and needed some work. Veteran teams from as far away as Detroit came to help with the rookie teams and their repairs. With that help we did get them all past inspection by 1:00 pm The start of the games. At 1:15 the games stoped for tree hours because of technical difficulties. This gave the rookie teams a three hour fix-it window, after that their robots were tuned up and ready to go. We ran matches until 9:30 pm.   

3-06-08: Michigan Rookie Event at Kettering University was set up Wednesday and Thursday. Teams started arriving at 4:00 pm and started uncrating their robot, shortly after we began inspections. All is going well with the rookies. Some are in pretty good shape for their first event. Our committee members are doing their tasks very well and the event is coming together exceptionally well. I believe it is our experience with putting on the Kettering Fall event that will make this event turn out great.

3-02-08: We need help from our members to help set up the field at Kettering on Wednesday.

2-19-08: Yahoo!!  The robot is shipped. This is a good time for a break.

2-18-08: Went up to Kettering one more time. The robot work flawless. The ball pick up is working 100 %, we are able to pick the ball up with ease. We can lift the ball to the overpass and flip it over every time. The robot drive system is working great. Carmen Answorth was there testing their robot, it looks good. They are working out their bugs. Stopped over at Lake Fenton to help them out, their robot is looking good also. One day left.

2-17-08: We installed rubber to stop the ball slippage, that work too well, made a bracket to stop the arm bolt from breaking, that worked. Took the robot to Kettering university practice field and tested our changes. They all worked well, found we needed a roller on top of the ball shooter, and a roller to help the arm move forward, repaired those items when we were back to the shop. The Swartz Creek team was their, we were hoping to play with them but they were not able to run until after we left, too bad. Finished the bumpers today, and worked on the programming also. It's ready for ship. Maybe one more practice. Two days left.

2-16-08: Bent a new arm to replace the old, fixed pneumatic relay problem, started assembling the bumpers. Took the robot over to the Lake Fenton HAZMAT team and used their overpass to test the robot. Everything worked good. We did break a bolt for the arm but we have a solution for that. We also had slippage for the the ball pick up and we have that problem solved. Checked out Lake Fenton, they are doing much better this year with their time. They are behind by our standards but looks like they are doing well. We can help them if they need it. We forgot to take pictures but Troy video taped the robot. We had some good food for lunch and the kid are excited. Its hard to keep them focused on the work to be done, but after six weeks of build that is to be expected. End of Week six, next is ship week. Three days left

2-15-08: Painted the rear panel, moved the IR remote sensor, repaired the broken wire chain guide, moved the arm assembly up 1 inch, repaired a damaged bearing guide, relocated the pneumatic for the ball shooter. Still need to work in the pneumatic relay to make the ball lift slow before its ready to shoot, it's together just needs to be checked. All that's left is bend a new arm and assemble the robot bumpers. A good day's work. Four days and counting.

2-14-08: Installed the sides to the robot, its getting so close.

2-13-08: Took the robot to the Kettering test field. The robot worked great. A brace needs to be moved so the ball will stay in better just before hurdling. We also need to have the arm that holds the ball to stay in place until the actual hurdle than move out of the way. Painted the robot panels. Made a list of other repairs needed. 

2-12-08: Tested the gear tooth sensors, they are working. Cut the side panels that need to be painted for the decorative sides. Weighed the robot, 110 pounds.

2-11-08: Finally got the pivot points and lift worked out. When in the ball pick up its right on, but when moved back it just clears the over pass by 1/8 of an inch, might even hit it, should not be a problem. Eric is working on the hybrid program.

2-10-08: Richie our program expert Helped Eric, our programmer with setting up the gear tooth sensor and other programming. We rebuilt the ball lift to make it stronger. Trying to figure out the pivot point for the pneumatics and the lift unit. Relocated some limit switches to better locations.

2-9-08: End of week five, took the robot up to the Kettering field to test the robot. The ball pick up works great. The ball/arm lift works great (a little slow but good for this game). The lift to hurdle the ball actually was able to throw the ball over the over pass. After a test try we found that the assembly was not strong enough and the pneumatics for setting the ball on top of the robot needed to be slowed, we can do that by adding adjustment valve in parallel with a electric valve. We raced the robot around the track many times and found it to be very fast.

2-7-08: Worked on the wire chain guide, it now works perfectly. Fixed a glitch in the program. Replaced a bad pneumatic relay. Tested all components, the robot is working great. The ball pick up is working better than expected. Still trying to find a way to secure the track, no way of doing it with out getting in the way of the arm mechanism. It works fine but it would be nice to make it stronger.

2-6-08: Too much snow for a meeting

2-5-08: Worked on making the robot fit in the start box configuration. Worked on tweaking parts of the robot.

2-4-08: some basic programming is in the robot, checked out some of the mechanisms and they need tweaking. The robot speed is very fast. The ball pick up needs a little more grip. The wire chain needs more of a rack.

2-3-08: Started programming, installed the gear toothed sensor and it did not work per the specs. We had power to it and did receive a change on a meter for the passing of the teeth but it was not going from zero to five volts that it was suppose to. We set up lab view 8 to test the signal to confirm our problem. Ritchie is going to take an old gear tooth sensor and configure it to work for us. The IR sensor was calibrated for the remote control we have and that works fine.

2-2-08: The list keeps getting smaller. Completed most of the tasks on the list to complete the robot. It is now time to start programming and checking how things work. Installed the fuses, the battery holder is done and all that is left is the gear tooth sensors and the gyro chip installed. Once all the items check out than we have to install the decretive shields to the sides.

1-30-08: Ryan C. and Brian installed the battery holder, Troy, Ryan, Michelle, Andrea, Rosie completed the main electrical wiring. The original layout was designed by Michelle our team leader.

1-29-08: started wiring the electrical boards, Pulled the arm wires through the wire chain (missed one set of wires), installed pneumatics.

1-26-08: Long day, installed the electrical boards, tweaked the arm and pick up motor. Installed the ball bats ( to hit the opponents ball backwards. Had a good lunch supplied by Andrea.

1-24-08: Attach track to robot, build main power board.

-23-08: Assemble track motors, paint and assemble electrical board.

1-22-08: Build track motor plates, start electrical board

1-19-08: End of Second Week: Assembled, 4 air tanks, compressor and claw. Bent tubing's for arm, cleaned up track.

1-17-08: attachment of the casters is giving us trouble, no clearance for it to turn 360. Received the track after being machined.

1-16-08: frame, drive motor and wheel assembly. Aluminum track cut and sent out for machining.

1-15-08: assembly of gear boxes and frame.

1-14-08: New Design. We are still trying to keep moving while delivering.

1-12-08: Failure !! We was at Baker collage to go over ideas for the game with the local teams and our presentation was great. We sold how well our robot was going to do and our ideas seemed wonderful. Afterwards we took our test robot up to Kettering University to try out the Ideas. Although in our garage with the garage compressor at 60 PSI it threw the ball great, but at Kettering the 60 PSI from the robot would hardly lift the ball. Using a "T" on top of the robot would not remove the ball from the rack it just lifted it and turned it. The fork lift lifted the ball very well but found it was too hard to capture the ball. Back to the drawing board.

1-10-08: Completed the test robot.

1-10-08: An article in our local news paper submitted by our team leader.

1-09-08: CAD design started, Modify old robot to test new robot designs has started.

1-08-08: Rough Robot designs approved today. We hope to Throw the ball over the over pass. We still have not agreed on the drive system. Some want two drives and casters and some want Mechen wheels drive.

1-05-08: Kettering Kick off, We picked up our parts after enjoying the live NASA feed from New Hampshire. The game release was exciting and fun and the game looks like a simple challenge. We are to race around a track while pushing a 40in. ball. The meeting afterward with the team to discuss the game was very productive. The members came up very good ideas and I believe all of them would work. We will discuss the best one on Tuesday after the final presentations from the team.

1-3-08: Game hint 3, we'll wait until Saturday.

1-3-08: We had some sort of meeting thing. "It looked like a movie theater, two more buckets of popcorn".  (Quote as of: Giggles, 1-3-08, 8:17:32PM). Troy thought it was the Indy 500.

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1-01-08: Happy New Year, only a few days to Kick off

12-30-07: The new Joeway is working!!!? view it at   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN_FrO-HWas

12-21-07: Game hint 2 is out. Too many ideas on Delphi site http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=60297

12-20-07: the Lego team is working on a battery drive, maybe we all should help

12-16-07: game hint links

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=60132

http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc/content.aspx?id=7600  

http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles/Community/FRC/FRC_Documents_and_Updates/2008_Assets/FIRSTIR%20-%20Instructions%20_121007.pdf

12-15-07: 3/8 of an inch from winning 1st place at Lego State Competition. The first match we ran we received 400 points but lost 30 points due to the robot pushing the dam 3/8 of an inch too far over a house. Our second and third matches were over 350 points. There were two teams that tied for first place with 400 points but there second games were under 350 points. Thus if we would not have lost the 30 points we would have won 1st place at the Lego State Regional. Close but not quite. The Lego team did a wonderful job and we could not have asked them to do better. We are very proud of what they have accomplished.

12-03-07: Check out this video at this site http://www.robots-dreams.com/2007/10/ihobby-expo-rob.html#more If we could build our robot to do this we could jump over the other robots like a basket ball player and score.

12-01-07: Vehicle City FTC was fun, we enjoyed a chance to compete with a robot. The robot did good , and our drivers did good. Almost everybody had a chance to drive.  Learned allot form our mistakes, and hope to do better next year.

11-17-07: Lego Fever II was today, we did very well, had a score of 355 points. All other points were above 250 points. We still had trouble with the corn program, made it once and half of it once. All the other missions are working fine. We will have to try to fix it because we did so well that we are going to state. We won the Robot Programming Award today and that allows us to go to the state competition. If we can solve the corn and uranium mission we will be able to get a perfect score every time. We currently are able to do it in our garage and in the pits but for some reason we loose consistency on the competition field. We will work with the students and solve the problem. The students did great and completed all the tasks asked of them and completed them Perfect.

11-08-07: We are officially sponsored by GM this year. They have made payment for our first competition at Great Lakes Regional. Thank You , Thank you, Thank you to GM, we could not exist with out them. It is now up to us to fund raise the money we need to build the robot. Team Members will need to come up with ideas for this money . You have until January.

11-4-07: The Practice competition yesterday went well.  We scored high, 2nd over all. We did have trouble with one mission, we think the lighting changed our readings from the robot. We will adjust and do very well at the main competition. Our kids have done a wonderful job this year, its the first year they were able to do 100 percent of the programming and the robot build. Their designs for all of the arms were great. They did a great job on their Presentations and team work.

10-27-07: The Lego programming is competed , we are at 90 to 100 percent with the score, the painting is done, all that is left is to work on our skits and team work skills.

10-26-07: We had a great Halloween Party, some Lego students and FRC student attended. check out the pictures.

10-19-07: Kettering to hold FIRST Regional -FIRST in Michigan – 2008 Tier Zero Event

Dates:                   March 7^th & 8^th

Location:              Kettering University

                              Recreational Center

                              1700 W. Third Ave.

                              Flint, Mich.  48504-4898

10-18-07: Michelle has built a new forum for our team, it looks great. I suggest the water dragon skin, it is easier to read. You can follow our forum links or just click here to jump to it.

10-14-07: Our team forum is up and running. It may need a little work still but try it out.

10-04-07: The Lego team went to Kettering university to learn about fuel cells. They learned how they work and how they are made. A air plane moving vehicle was there that a hydrogen fuel cell was installed also the students were allowed to ride in a Fuel cell car.

09-29-07: The Lego team has finished some programming and accomplished a number of missions.

09-26-07: The Lego team tested the omni robot and found that it was not accurate. The Idea was that one motor would drive four wheels and the other motor would turn them along with the arm motor. We decided to revamp last years robot and made some changes that we were having trouble with and improved it greatly. With the changes we were suppressed how accurate it became. Below is the omni robot

09-22-07: Got to Kettering early and got the robot working. We did well on practice. The robot ran well all day. Won 2, lost 4 and finished 28 out of 34. Not our best showing score wise but did have good points. The robot was delivering the ring to all levels with no problem but did have trouble with other teams ramming us and not getting any penalties for it. Tried to help Lake Fenton team and they were able to function on a few rounds. Michelle was interviewed on Banana 101 and sounded great. Had the buggy on display and it looked great.

09-21-07: We took the robot to Kettering to test the electrical system, lost the robot program and could not test it.

09-20-07: Team members Helped at Kettering to setup the field.

09-08-07: Kim had some health issues Friday and went to the hospital and had a full check out and every thing is fine and she came home Saturday afternoon. Eric and Michelle ran the Lego meeting Saturday morning and that went well and they completed the field assembly.

09-07-07: Received the Lego field and parts. Started assembly of field elements, the Lego meeting on Wednesday went well.

08-26-07: We all survived the tornados that hit Fenton on Friday the 24th. A lot of damage around the area. The Emergency crews did a great job.

08-21-07: The next season of the FIRST Tech Challenge will begin in September 2007, and planning is underway. Team registration is open. Details on tournaments and season information will be posted starting October 1, 2007. FTC competitions will take place in locations where FIRST has an Affiliate Partner.

08-02-07: Kim came home from the hospital and all is well.

08-01-07: Kim went to the hospital and had gallbladder surgery, and every thing went well.

07-31-07:  Check out this web site about power from salt water http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lud1qceKqyQ&mode=related&search

07-29-07: A news article appeared in the Flint Journal to day that mentioned out robot and co/coach Joe Weber in regards to the Music in the park and the  Kettering Kick off

07-24-07 : Attended the Music in the park at Mott Park, Flint. Joe, Kim, Jim, Andrea, Michelle and here Friend Aaron attended The Event. We were at this event to help advertise the Kettering Kick off at the request of Kettering University. We set up our robot for display along with Carmen Ainsworth team 314 to allow people to see what we are and answer questions about robotics. The music was great and the weather was beautiful so we took pictures.

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