Quite a few teams showed up for the Illinois kickoff. We learned that there are 34 rookie teams in the Chicago area this year. The day started by view the game video and discussing the rules. Team Octopi discussed what the competitions are like and what to expect. Bruce Petersen then took the floor to discuss Engineering Notebooks. He discussed their importance and what to write in them. He shared is own notebooks from his career as an electrical engineer. Large or small, they contained contact information, ideas, calculations and sketches.
In the afternoon several classes were offered on the programming software LabView and RobotC as well as the 3D drafting software by PTC, Creo. "Got Robot" did an excellent job setting up the computer lab and presenting RobotC. The virtual world robots were fun to drive. The best part was that they had a game field for this years competition.
Our team has had a very difficult time downloading the Creo software. The file size is huge, weighing in at 4.2 Gb, it is not your normal download! I must have had 99.9% completed when the download quit. I ended up with a zip file that I could open and see the files, but could not extract anything. It took 12 hours to download over a DSL line. I'm sure other services will be faster than mine, but wow!
Many of the teams brought last year's robots with them. It was fun to get a closer look at them since we'll be building our own soon.
It was a fun day and good to see the "Crazy 8's" again and to make new friends. We're looking forward to seeing them again at a scrimmage or a competition.
In the afternoon several classes were offered on the programming software LabView and RobotC as well as the 3D drafting software by PTC, Creo. "Got Robot" did an excellent job setting up the computer lab and presenting RobotC. The virtual world robots were fun to drive. The best part was that they had a game field for this years competition.
Our team has had a very difficult time downloading the Creo software. The file size is huge, weighing in at 4.2 Gb, it is not your normal download! I must have had 99.9% completed when the download quit. I ended up with a zip file that I could open and see the files, but could not extract anything. It took 12 hours to download over a DSL line. I'm sure other services will be faster than mine, but wow!
Many of the teams brought last year's robots with them. It was fun to get a closer look at them since we'll be building our own soon.
It was a fun day and good to see the "Crazy 8's" again and to make new friends. We're looking forward to seeing them again at a scrimmage or a competition.