Robotics log 1

This year I have many plans for the robotics team that will, hopefully, improve and streamline the process for years to come. I worked over the summer with Chris and many other engineers to finalize a design that we will try and use this year. Several engineers I talked to told me about a lot about some of the things they wish they had known about mechanical engineering and the sciences before they went into college. It is important that I know this so I can reinforce these goals during the build season. The whole point of why I want to keep the team going is to try and get more interest from people into the sciences. These type things are important and interesting to me, for one I am going into these fields also. I plan to make a page on the robotics website that is dedicated to different carrier paths that robotics can help you understand. I was thinking of asking Lauren for help on this as her project is related.

Specking of which, the website is been something that we have needed and wanted to start up for a long time. I finally started it up this year and it has turned into a lot more work then I first thought it would be. I am talking to a webmaster now who is teaching me a lot about PHP and other website design code. This has turned into being part of my learning experience; just because of how much I have learned. We will be able to use the website to communicate to other teams, and each other. Other people who are no longer on team can give their knowledge and info on questions. Example would be like me asking a question and Chris or Phil who are now in college could respond. The website is also a good gateway for other teams to see what we are all about. I hope to use it for recruitment this year as well.

At this moment we will start having weekly meetings in school to talk about some basic ideas. I will share what I did this summer with the team and get their input on the design concepts I have made. We will also work on getting new sponsors for this year’s competition. I got everyone’s schedule and worked out that C-day 2nd period is a time period that we can meet until the season starts up. Hopefully we will get more time once the new semester starts so I don’t have to talk about plans and sponsorship during building time. This is another thing that I want to revamp this year is our time spent. In previous years we spent most of the meeting time goofing off and planning. It wasn’t until the 3rd week we got our basic design done. I want to get all the design and plans done within the first week so we can dedicate the rest of the time into building and correcting any errors that come up.

We have a lot of work to do before the year really kicks off: prototype building, gaining sponsors, and getting more people involved with the team. I want to get the team excited to get stuff going now so that by the time season starts we will be ready for any challenge.