We Bagged It

Tonight was our last full 3 hour session to work on our robot during build season. The rules state that all Michigan teams, competing in the FIRST in Michigan district events, must bag up their robot by 5pm EST, Tuesday February 17, 2009. None of us felt that it made any sense to wait and try to bag it tomorrow, so we did it tonight.

In our Kit of Parts, we got this huge plastic bag and a special kind of "zip tie" so that we can lock up the robot when our time is up. We have an independent person sign and verify that we've locked up the robot and we keep a log from now on, that shows every time we unlock and re-lock the robot.

From 2009 Build Season

This may seem rather goofy, but FIRST is rooted in honesty and "Gracious Professionalism" and this method is much more economical than shipping the robot in a huge wooden crate. We're playing by the rules and trust that all other Michigan teams are too.

From 2009 Build Season

Tonight we mounted the gyro on the robot and wrote some code to turn a specific number of degrees. We didn't get it all working, but I think we can before our first event.

In a true FIRST regional event, teams have a full day on Thursday to test and tweak their machines. A new change with FIRST in Michigan, to save teams money, is that the Thursday tweak day no longer exists. This saves teams money, especially when they have to travel and pay for hotel rooms for the team on Thursday night. So, to keep things even, FIRST in Michigan is allowing us to "un-bag" our robots for up to a total of 8 hours during the week of any district event in which we are competing.

We are competing in the first week of competitions, so we have a total of 8 hours we can test and tweak next week. I think we have plenty of time to sort out the last few quirks.