Week two was when things really started happening, behind the scenes wise. We began holding daily meetings before breaking in to individual groups, and this has really helped our team stick to the time line. In 3Ds, the the storyboard for the animation is completed and work is begun on the computer generated aspect of it, with the landscape already finished. When the buttons came in Monday, the Public Relations crew successfully designed and manufactured 500 buttons two days. In addition, they made printed and folded 1200 bandannas. The website folks worked on coding and update a lot of the website pages. (check it out!) We also prototyped a new kicker. Last but not least, we’ve decided on a name for or beloved yet-to-be-in-existence robot. Recoil.

Keep your eyes out!!
Katelyn Dorrell

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All the members and mentors for team 935 have been working hard all week. To recap
Sunday:
On Sunday, we came in at 1:00 and continued our discussion from Saturday about strategy. We concluded that the three most important things to our team were to be able to score balls in the goal, (whether it be by kicking, knocking, or pushing the ball), having a robust robot, and having the ability to score from all three zones, in that order.
Monday
Monday, we started off our meeting in build team subdivisions (programming, electrical, kicker, chassis, and hanging mechanism) and began brainstorming and drawing out 12 ideas per small group of how we thought those specific parts of the robot should function to complete the task. Because part of the team went to go present at SRES, we were only able to begin sharing brainstorming ideas.
Tuesday
Tuesday was a big day for pro/con discussion about ball handling mechanisms (such as kickers, shooters, or slingshots) and drive train. We are trying to get links for you to see our pro/con spread sheets.
Wednesday
On Wednesday, we pro/con-ed the hanging mechanism, and decided that we would use tent poles and a winch to grab and pull up the robot. Some of the members started learning a little about 3D animation with one of our mentors, Tyler Brown. This is very exciting, because it means that we might have a 3D animation that we thought we wouldn’t have.
Thursday
At the beginning of the meeting Thursday, we elected co-captains for our team, Becky Regier and Dylan Jantz. After that was all taken care of, one of our main tasks was to raise money for the Kansas City Regional. We had two separate groups giving presentations, one to Brett Rouffs, DDS, at his dental office, and another to Cottonwood Pediatrics, who chose to come to us and see what we were all about. We received two thousand dollars from Brett and his business, and one thousand from Cottonwood Pediatrics. We are extremely grateful to both of these organizations for donating to the RaileRobotics team. While this was going on, other members of our team began building a prototype chassis to start testing programs.
Friday
Our team made the best possible use of our time Friday. Because we didn’t have school, we had nearly 12 hours to work in the shop. Our inventor group continued working on drawing the parts for our ball handling mechanism and the chassis. The programming group worked on creating mecanum code, and everyone who didn’t have a specific job worked on building the playing field. In public relations, we purchased buttons and bandanas, so they should be in around a week from now.
Saturday
Saturday we started seeing the physical effects of work we had been putting in all week. By the end of the day, we had a moving prototype chassis, one carpeted bump for the playing field, and a prototyped kicker. In addition, we had begun updating the website, and figuring out how the button maker software works. Our people working on the hanging mechanism found two possible winches for our contraption.
Wrapping it Up:
Everyone on our team has been working very hard to get things done this week. Our mentor s are very impressed by the way that people are working together since everything started, and are looking forward to seeing what good things come out of our hard work.

Stay Tuned For More Information!
Katelyn Dorrell

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We were all very proud of the accomplishments that both the girls and boys teams made at the FTC competition in Oklahoma City on November 6th.
The boy’s team, 3703, placed 4th overall at the venue. Boys were nominated for the PTC Design award and the Connect award. The Connect award is given to the team most connected with their local community and the engineering community. The PTC Design Award recognizes design elements of the robot that are both functional and visually appealing. All successful robots have innovative design aspects however the PTC Design Award is presented to teams that incorporate industrial design elements into their solution.
The girl’s team (taking the traditional number of 935) did not officially place due to last-minute difficulties. However, they were nominated for the Motivate award. This award celebrates the team that exemplifies the essence of the competition through team spirit and enthusiasm. Although we did not win the award, simply being nominated for it was an honor for our team. Overall, going to Oklahoma was a very rewarding experience for all of us. But the experienced members of the team say that that was just a small taste of what we look forward to in March when we go to contest with FRC.


Now, we are ready to move on to the FRC competition, Breakaway. The kickoff for this competition was Saturday, January 9th. We will be working on things for the robotics team every school day after school from 3:15 to 7:30pm for the next 6 weeks, as well as every Saturday from 8:00am till 3:30pm. This game involves 12 soccer balls that you have to manipulate to score points. You earn one point for every ball scored in a goal. There are also bonus points available to earn by either A) hanging your robot on the tower or on the platform and/or B) by hanging your robot from another teammate’s robot. The alliance gains two extra points for A and three for B. We will be on an alliance with two other teams each round. Click here to watch the game animation! You can go to usfirst.org to get more information about this year’s game.
We’re making significant progress in brainstorming ideas for designing the robot and beginning to work on inventor and learning about basic programming concepts. We are also still fund raising. We still need about $3000 to be able to go to competitions that we are signed up for. So if you would like to donate or would like for us to come give a presentation please get in contact with us (you can e-mail us in the Get Involved tab under Contacts).
We are planning on going to two regional events this year: Kansas City and Oklahoma City. We will have more information posted. So, please keep visiting the site to see how we are doing with build season!

Remember Be A Super Nerd!!!
Katelyn Dorrell

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