J2IT is Now TBD

The team has been reformed for the 2012-2013 FTC season - and the team has decided on a new name: TBD (To Be Determined).  No really, that is the name.

We also have a new team blog to go with our team name.  All new team posts will be found here:

http://tbdftc.blogspot.com/

Lets have a great season!

We have creadted a calendar of some of the next meetings and have decided on a frame work for some of those meetings.

Aug. 4th          Teleop for rover bots
Aug. 11th        Mock competition for rover bots
Aug. 18th        Start work on video ideas, PTC, teleop, and drive train.
Aug. 25th        Continuation of previous work
Sep. 8th           Challenge anoucement and brainstorming

July 28th Team Practice

At this meeting our team(group) finished our prototype bot. we added the wheels and the servo motors, we also put the battery and the nxt brick in place. we learned how to put the samantha on the robot, and how you should tuck the cable in the robot to prevent it from getting in the way of other things.

Our team name choices were Untitled 2 and T.b.d(to be determand) we have not decided yet but they are both awsome choice


Benjamin Ruiz

Ben Ruiz

Name: Benjamin Ruiz
Age: 12         Grade: 6

School: Harmon middle school

Benjamin Ruiz has just started working with F.T.C this year. Ben also builds and drivers robots. He was in the F.L.L composition and made it to the regional finals in the F.l.l. He is an awesome teammate..

Jaret Skonieczny

Jaret is one of J2IT’s programmer and also one of the team mentors to guide the aspiring young members. He enjoys videogames, hanging out with friends and going on outdoor trips. Jaret has done FLL and also has done FTC in the past. He also looks forward to having a great enjoyable season this year.

Name: Ian Doemling

Grade: 8

Team Job: Builder and Progam Tester

Biography:

Ian Doemling is one of J2IT's builders. Ian also tests many of the programs, ecspecially the driver controlled programs. Ian is 14 years old and grew up in the city of Pittsburgh, Pensylvania. At the age of 7 he moved to Aurora, Ohio. He loves math and science and excels in school. He was on an FLL Team for 1 year then moved to an FTC Team last year. This is his second yearon a FTC team.  Ian loves to problem solve and build. He is in boy scouts and loves the outdoors.

FTC Summer Kick-off Event

Welcome to the new Aurora Robotics FTC Team (aka J2IT)

We are now team #6022 and everyone should come Saturday ready to discuss keeping or changing the team name.

Next practice will be Saturday July 21st at 9AM. Also all team profiles need to be completed by the end of practice this Saturday.

Congratulations to Ian as our new Team Captain, we look forward to your leadership this season.

Lets have a great season!
- Coach

2012-2013 Team Rules & Consequences

Rules:

• Respect Others' Ideas
• No Unexcused Absences
• No Talking About Minecraft
• No Malicious Actions to People on Our Team

Consequences:

1. Verbal Warning
2. 10-Minute Break
3. 1-4 Meeting Suspension (This Disciplinary Level May Be Repeated)
4. Kicked Off Team

*These Rules are Subject to Change!

Sam Berryhill

age:13                                          Grade:7
     
School:Harmon Middle School

2012-2013 FTC Team Kick-off Event

Team & Parents,

When: Saturday July 14th from 10am – 1pm
Where: Coach's house

We will be having our first FTC Team gathering on Saturday July 14th from 10am – 1pm. I know this doesn’t work for everyone, and I apologize. If you cannot attend, I’ll make sure to send any information needed before our next team practice the following weekend (July 21st).

We will be planning the FTC season, reviewing the team policies, and calendar. We probably won’t have a lot of time with the robot this day. But there will also be food and some team building games to help mix the new members with the old team.

If you can bring a side dish, desert, or drinks please email and let me know.

Parents are always invited to attend any practice
 - but if possible I’d ask that at least 1 parent attend from 12:30-1:00pm to review the team calendar and expectations.

If you have any questions or concerns do not hesitate to contact me.

Thanks,
Terry

October 24, 2011 Practice

Today Jaret refined his four-wheel-drive joystick program. We can now control the robot with the joystick and have it turn 360 degrees while staying in the same place. While Ian was making the four-wheel drive system one of the gears actually was touching the ground. At first we thought we would have to find a way to avoid this but after a few tests we realized the gear actually helped the robot grip the ground and improved stability. Today Ian mounted "wheelie wheels" so that the robot will not flip backward while going up the ramp. Jared finished the arm but has not yet mounted it. Tyler worked on making a program that will test the arm and its motors without them stalling like they have in the past.

Jared Ruehr

Name: Jared Ruehr

Age: 12

School and Grade: Harmon Middle School, 7th grade

Jared is one of J2IT's builders and is the vice team captain and is also a mentor for the younger team members. His job aspirations are to be some kind of engineer. Some of his other hobbies are sketching, sports, camping, and playing on the computer. Jared also participated in the FLL two years ago and participated in the FTC last year on J2IT . He enjoys having participated in the FTC and wishes to participate next year.

Jaret's Bio

Name: Jaret Skonieczny
Grade: 7
Team Job: Remote Control Programmer/Arm Controller/ Tester
Bio: The job of programming the remote controls goes to Jaret. He makes sure with the help of Ian, that the programs are running smoothly. He also designed and made all of the programs relating to the joysticks. Jaret is 13 and is 100% ohion. He was on FLL for 1 year and this is his first year doing FTC. Jaret likes reading, writing, and math and does well in school. He is currently in Boy Scouts and likes to camp.

Team Profile: Ian Doemling

Name: Ian Doemling

Grade: 7

Team Job: Builder and Progam Tester

Biography:

Ian Doemling is one of J2IT's builders. Ian also tests many of the programs, ecspecially the driver controlled programs. Ian is 13 years old and grew up in the wonderful city of Pittsburgh, Pensylvania. At the age of 7 he moved to Aurora, Ohio. He loves math and science and excels in school. He was on an FLL Team for 1 year then moved to an FTC Team this year. Ian loves to problem solve and build. He is in boy scouts and loves the outdoors. Although Ian lives in the Cleveland area he loves Pittsburgh and THE PITTSBURGH STEELERS.

Team Profile: Tyler Thieding

Name: Tyler Thieding

Grade: 8

Team Job: Primary Autonomous Programmer

Biography:

Tyler Thieding is the team's autonomous programmer who is skilled with various forms of programming and computer networking. He loves math and science and he succeeds in his schoolwork and is a straight-A student. His career aspirations are a theoretical physicist.

January 28, 2011 Meeting

Today we finished our rennovation of the arm by changing the design to fix it due to a motor burning out again. This included a new gripping system, with two servos. Pictures of the new
design are coming soon.

Feburary 3rd meeting

At this meeting we worked on a few things. Ian and Jared worked on the making the ball grasping mechanism. They also fixed a few issues with gears and such. Ian and I worked on making the plastic hoop ring to get the bowling bowl. I fixed some bugs in the joystick program. Tyler worked on fixing the auto program a bit.

January 23, 2012 Practice

On this practice we began to remodel the arm for the second competition. This included redoing the grip system and the whole arm position. We also worked out smaller issues, like moving the Samantha Module. And finally I confirmed that the autonomous programs work with our new design.

January 21, 2011 Meeting

Today, only I was present to work on the robot to prepare for the second competition we are attending. I worked on moving the arm controls downward in the robot, as well as beginning to remodel the hand. This will allow a more controlled lifting of balls and crates to the lift, improving accuracy and score.

I also worked on adding a system that will help guide the bowling ball to the robot, instead of involuntary releasing the ball. This will help us score more during the autonomous stage of the code. The position required for the internal side of the board was finally found, which was in the middle of the internal side with the robot shifted right at a 45 degree angle.

This was a productive construction day, which will help our entire team score better and hopefully make it to the state competition.

J2IT Competing in the FTC Regional Qualifiers.

J2IT completing code review with judge prior to the competition.




J2IT First and best run of the day.


- Terry Phillips

aka. HUM4N

Location:Tri-C FTC regional qualifiers

Team registration and robot inspection on Jan 13, 2012

J2IT regional qualifying event at Tri-C tomorrow.

Passed inspection with flying colors.

J2IT

Robot Inspection

Lifting the basket

-










Good job guys!

 Terry Phillips (Coach)

Location:Tri-C

Computer Model

This is a Google Sketchup represenentation of our robot.

J2IT Autonomous Code

J2IT Autonomous Code

The following program is one of four for each position, in this case this is the blue team, exterior side.

task main()
{
  initializeRobot();

  waitForStart(); // Wait for the beginning of autonomous phase.

  ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
  ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
  ////                                                   ////
  ////    Add your robot specific autonomous code here.  ////
  ////                                                   ////
  ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
  ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

  motor[W_Left] = universal_speed - 10;
  motor[W_Right] = universal_speed;
  wait1Msec(3500);
  if (red == true)
  {
    if (exterior == true)
    {
      left_turn(1000);
    }
    else
    {
      left_turn(1500);
    }
  }
  else
  {
    if (exterior == true)
    {
      right_turn(1000);
    }
    else
    {
      right_turn(1500);
    }
  }
  straight(2000);
  if (exterior == true)
  {
    if (red == true)
    {
      //Turn Left
      left_turn(850);
    }
    else
    {
      //Turn Right
      right_turn(850);
    }
  }
  straight(6500);
  motor[W_Right] = 0;
  motor[W_Left] = 0;
}

1/7/2012 Meeting

Today we ran a lot of test runs. Also I made the 4th motor move up the scissor lift. Tyler finaly went up and drove and operated the arm. Ian is working on making the top of the scissor lift flat. He also put non-slip pads on the top. Jared removed the plow which was getting balls stuck in body of the robot.








The new screw rod for popping the scissor lift.

December 29, 2011 Meeting

Today it was just Ian and Jared at the meeting. We decided to have the builders meet and then the programmers meet. Jared made a plow for the robot to try to prevent balls from finding their way into the center of our robot. Ian cut a piece of plastic that we will melt for the top of the robot. This will prevent the basket from falling off the sides. We also have ideas of adding non-stick padding to the plastic. We added finger like strips of plastic on the hand to help grip the basket. The tips of the "fingers" will be able to go into the holes in the basket. We also did a rewview of the hardware on the robot.

December 31st meeting

Today I made refined our joystick control system. I made the tank drive a lot better by adding a refined equation (JoyValue / 127 * 100 = Motor Value) that scales the joystick value of -127 to 127 into -100 to 100. I used the D-pad to make the elbow work a lot better, so i can refine it degree by degree. Tyler worked on the auto program to make it work better. It can now get the bowling ball but he is still working on getting the bowling captured.

12/19/11 Meeting

At our meeting we did many things. I did refined the joystick program to make expectational output. The equation is

MotorOutout = ( joystickValue ^ 2 / max joystickValue ^ 2)

Scrimmage Results

Congratulations Team on a great scrimmage.  8 FTC teams participated and all were high school except J2IT.  We scored 2nd place overall and had the single highest scoring game of the day.  We learned some great strategy and also some got some great ideas from the other teams to help finish our robot for the January competition. Thanks Hudson for hosting this great event.

Pre-Scrimage Meeting

Today our team was preparing for the scrimage at Hudson High School. I feel that we are well prepared even though our scisor lift has to be operated by the arm and not an independant motor. Today Jaret and Tyler worked on the programs revising and preparing them for the compotition. Ian and I both worked on tightening screws and packing materials for the compotion. I think that we will do well against the other high school teams, but I do not think we will come in forst for this scrimage compotion.

December 3, 2011 Practice

In our recent practice, we completed a lot of work with the autonomous program and making bug fixes in the joystick-control program. I added precise turning and driving, and I am planning on incorporating the infared sensor in a more precise method. Jaret and Ian started to incorporate dual joysticks, as they are used in that fashion in the competition. Jared worked on catalog the robot part, part by part.

November 28, 2011 Meeting

Today Jaret worked on the programming for the arm.He made good progress with that. Jared worked on fixing the kinks on the robot. Tyler started programming for the autonomous mode. He is making 2 programs, one for if we are the red team and one for if we are on the blue team. Today ian worked with the lift and he tried to make a triggering system. He is still trying to figure it out.

November 26, 2011 Practice

Today, Ian eas not present, but we still accomplished a large fleet of innovations. Jared worked on finalizing the arm, even though there is still work to be done. As I encountered problems with my program, Jaret debugged the code and spent the remainder of the practice simplifing the code. Wheras after Jaret took over programming, I started the proccess of cataloging the robot parts. The current count is posted below (not complete):

43 Cm Channel - 2
29 Cm Channel - 12
Motor - 4
Servo - 2
4.75 Cm Radius Wheel - 4
5 Cm Radius Gear - 3
2 Cm Radius Gear - 7
3 Cm Radius Gear - 5
Servo Controller - 1
Motor Controller - 2

Robot Photos

The "Guts"

Our new 4.2 wheel drive.

Ian D. working on mounting the scissor lift.

Jared R. fixing the transmission's gears.

Tyler T. mounting the Infrared Sensor.

An early test of the articulated arm.

The arm looks cool even if it didn't work.

The new scissor lift.

November 12, 2011 Practice

Today we woked mostly on our robot design. We did some work with our arm by attatching and reworking with the design, like working with weight-related issues. The weight of the servo could not lift the basket. We also started our lift system by attatching it to the robot. We referanced our designs to online videos with Jaret leading on the innovation. I worked on programming the arm autonomously and with the joystick. Today was considerably productive.

FTC Competition Video

Check out this video of one of the first FTC competitions this year. 

http://youtu.be/WAamee1D8SU

November 11, 2011 Meeting

Today Tyler started working on the autonomous program for the competion. He was working with the infared sensor to align the robot in the playing field no matter what color we are. Today Jared finished attaching the plastic wheel guards that aid in protecting the wheels.He spent the remaining time preping the robot for attaching the claw mechinism. Ian continued working on the scissor lift. He made a track for the bottom to follow and added a support beam through the center. Jaret, unfortunately, was not present at today's meeting.

November 5, 2011 Practice

As our practice began, Ian and Jared began with building as usual. Wheras I was programming and Jaret was working on our shirt design.

Jared and Ian both worked on a wheel guard system, until Ian branced off and worked on a lift system for the crate.

After I encountered some joystick issues while programming, Jaret took over with his knowledge of the joystick. He did not acheive much with the program.

After my programming was taken ovey by Jaret two-thirds into the meeting, I wrapped up Jaret's shirt design using some photoshop techniques I know.

In conclusion, our meeting was mostly productive and we are looking forward
to our future meetings where we can perfect work we did today.

Meeting Review 10/29/11

Today was a very productive meeting. I (Jared) worked on the hand again and might have finally finished on the comlpete desighn including the newest desighn change the magnetic sensor.Tyler finally completed the stall program and is now experimenting with using the encoders. Jaret and Ian worked on our future plow and fixed other minor flaws in our robot. Jaret and Tyler also tried programing our arm but they decided to do something else instead. Today we had a very productive meeting and I think that we are now steadying to a fairly good pace.

october 22, 2011 practice

Today we made some good progress. Jared worked on his claw and came close to finishing it. Tyler made a turning program that because of our new wheel system could turn the robot in a very confined space. Ian worked on and finished the new wheels that include 4 wheel drive with Jaret's help. Jaret continued with the joystick. The joystick is working so much better because of the 4 wheel drive system.Videos that show what we can do with four wheel drive are above.

October 15th meating

Today we did some things. Jared worked on the claw and it seemed he made a little bit of progress. I worked on the joystick and got it to work better. And Tyler worked on an inferred program hat seems to work really well and is very good.

October 8, 2011 Practice

Today, Jaret and I dove into the new sensors, magnetic and infared. We got both sensors working in a basic manner, and I am waiting to test a more advanced IR beacon tracker. A video with the concept is on the left side. We also mounted a new "device" to the robot.

October 3, 2011 Practice

Today, we worked with motors to create a stop on stall program due to burning out two motors. We finnaly have a system that stops the motors before they burn. We just need to spend five minutes to incorporate this into our programs, and then we will save the "lives" of many motors.

A picture of our stall test system is below.

October 1, 2011 Practice

What We Did:

Today we added a support system to our robotic arm. We set up the final wiring and gave the arm some movement.

What We Learned:

Our team had a scary experience of our arm's motor almost burning out.
The odor of smoke was emmiting from our motor.Next time, we need to be more careful with tge arm's power and the control of "new" devices.

September 26, 2011 Practice

Today, Jared and Ian were building their attachments of an elevator and the arm. I helped attach the arm and began programming for arm usage in the autonomous code. We all watched Jaret debug his joystick program "JoyOS". We made a great deal of progress today.

August 26th Meating

Today we worked on a lot of stuff. Jared worked on making an arm. Tyler worked on the automounus code and I drove the robot with the joystick program. Thats pretty much all we did on this meating!

Mark your calendars...

J2IT is now offically registered to compete in the FTC OH Regional Qualifying Tournament on January 13-14, 2012

   Robot/Software Inspections Friday, January 13, 6:00 – 8:00 pm
   Tournament Saturday, January 14, 7:30 am

Location

Cuyahoga Community College
Eastern Campus
4250 Richmond Road
Highland Hills, OH 44122

FTC-OH Qualifying Tournament

September 19, 2011 Practice

The interior of our robot, or
as Jared calls it, the tech package.

Tonight we finalized our driving system for our robot. We finished adding wires for motor controllers and then mounted the NXT. We then took the time to add the Samantha Module for Wi-Fi usage with the NXT. We did not get a chance to experiment with the new device.

We did get to get an atonomous program to use a simple driving pattern. I am planning on adding some simple behind-the-scenes functions that influence major functions. We will also add sensor inputs.

Jaret also started his joystick and got his program to move forward and stop the wheels. We had a very productive meeting today.

September 17, 2011 Practice

Jaret working with the
new joystick

Today, we started replacing the school's Tetrix parts with our own components. We also started to modify the robot to fit the challenge.

Some of the changes included re-creating the motor an servo controllers, along with the very important battery pack. We also started creating new joystick program using our brand-new joysticks.

New Motor and Servo Controller Mounts

September 10, 2011 Practice



The logo for this years's challenge.

Today, we watched a live stream of the challenge being released. We watched live Q&A and the challenge video. We also enjoyed food while watching the broadcast.

After the live session, we went back to work with braistorming ideas and planning the next meeting. We got a few good ideas flowing for working with the objects and containers.

August 27, 2011 Practice

Here is the gear system on
the ball collector.

Today we reconstructed the ball contraption for the robot. Ian and I added gear systems to boost the speed of a wheel to roll the balls. Next week we are considering upgrading some of the gears to chains and adding more wheels to actually shoot the balls into the container.

We finally made a reliable NXT
mound!

On the other hand. I finally made a stable and accessible NXT mount. It also provides easy access to the NXT brick itself. We also moved some components to make room for our new addition of an improved ball collector.


Today was very productive and we are planning on adding on and possibly completing the ball collection device on our next meeting. We also anticipate the release of the actual challenge, on September 10th. I was very impressed by how productive today's meeting was.

june 14th meeting

Jaret and I were the only one at the meeting i worked on a acceleration sensor controller its pretty cool. Jaret was working on a random number generator and a X-box remote controller.

August 20th Practice

Today Jaret, Tyler, and I worked on a new challenge which was to collect golf balls and then release them in a determined place. Today though we mainly built the attachment necsisary for the challenge and programmed tests for the different motors. We also are playing with the mount for the NXT which we still can not figure out how we want to mount it. Over all the practice was very productive.

August 13, 2011 Practice



Here is our final robot from today. You
can see my servo attachment on top.

Today we were all here, except for Ian. The goal for today was to get the robot into a position where it could drive around. Jared and Jaret had to leave early, so I added a servo.

The servo operated a channel with a object enclosed. The final program was simple and had the object get dumped off the robot. I have included the code from the dumping program below:




#pragma config(Hubs,  S1, HTMotor,  HTServo,  none,     none)
#pragma config(Motor,  mtr_S1_C1_1,     Wheel_Left,    tmotorNormal, openLoop, reversed)
#pragma config(Motor,  mtr_S1_C1_2,     Wheel_Right,   tmotorNormal, openLoop)
#pragma config(Servo,  srvo_S1_C2_1,    Experimental,         tServoStandard)
//*!!Code automatically generated by 'ROBOTC' configuration wizard               !!*//
task main()
{
  int Universal_Speed = 25;
  servo[Experimental] = 0;
  motor[Wheel_Left] = Universal_Speed;
  motor[Wheel_Right] = Universal_Speed;
  wait1Msec(2000);
  motor[Wheel_Left] = 0;
  motor[Wheel_Right] = 0;
  servo[Experimental] = 90;
  wait1Msec(2000);
  servo[Experimental] = 0;
  wait1Msec(2000);
}

August 6, 2011 Practice

Today we started our meeting with a discussion on our current robots and how to combine the components to make a powerful machine. Ian and I kept our electronic components and Jaret kept the wheel system.

 
Our new robot currently has only wheels. Next week we are adding the electronic components, including the NXT and TETRIX controllers. We had many debates over the robot's design, and now we are on to creating an amazing machine that will work for our practice before the challenge is released.

Our Old Robot Designs

Mine and Ian's robot.

Jaret's robot.