The Strange Case of Driving and Re-Building

posted in: Build Season, FRC | 0

FRED the Steamworks robot was a robot of a rugged countenance, that was never lighted by a smile; cold, hard and shiny in decoration; backward in driving; sleek, short, dusty, metallic, and yet somehow lovable. However, the robot is not quite complete as of yet. The subsystems are still hard at work building the climber and gear collector, there is a shooter being designed and hopefully fabricated, there is still a lot of programming left to do, the bumpers are being made, and the community outreach team is still hard at work with a plethora of assignments.

Finishing the climbing mechanism
Creating the shooter prototype
Making bumpers for the final robot
Every Saturday during the build season is a Safety Saturday, meaning that our safety committee, and possibly a mentor or two, gives a safety demonstration. The coolest, or should I say hottest, demonstration every year is the Fire Safety demonstration.  One of our mentors used to work as a volunteer firefighter, so he knows a lot about fire safety, though fire extinguishers are what he focuses on during the demonstration. The mentor creates a controlled fire in a clear area outside of the school building, and then he teaches the team how to use fire extinguishers by telling them and then having three different students – who have not done it before – use the fire extinguishers to put out the fires. The demonstration this year was quite successful – only Carl was injured.