The Quantum Leap | Sept-Oct 2021 by OA Robotics - Quantum Leap

The Quantum Leap Sept - Oct 2021

Table of Contents 03

Meet the Team Mechanical

Software

FTC Kickoff

Electrical

Operations

Preparing for Beach Blitz Publicity Robot

upcoming schedule From the Operations Directors

Meet our teams FRC We are Team 4079 - Quantum Leap competing in the FIRST Robotics Competition. During the off-season, we work on building our foundation for the upcoming season. We teach incoming students the basics of engineering, hold student-lead workshops, and compete in off-season competitions such as Beach Blitz. Our Build Season begins with the Annual FRC Kickoff followed by collaborative brainstorming, designing, and building our competition-ready robot. This year we are working on various projects during this off-season, including the creation of a publicity robot for the first time in our team’s history. We are scheduled to have the robot complete by the end of this calendar year!

FTC

We are Team 19812 - Quantum Leap competing in the FIRST Tech Challenge. An offshoot from our FRC team, our team mainly comprises junior members just starting to explore the world of engineering. During this Build Season, we are addressing the problems of the transportation of the future in this year’s challenge, Freight Frenzy. This is our first year having an FTC Team under the Quantum Leap program, opening up new opportunities for STEM in our community! Now that we have more opportunities for Junior High and young High School members to participate, our program has been rapidly expanding. You can see us competing at our first FTC Meet on November 13, 2021.

Rankings INNOVATION CHALLENGE International Semi-finalists, 2021

#19 RANKED WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS Quarter Finalists - Carver Division, 2019

#2 RANKED ORANGE COUNTY REGIONALS Finalists and Captains, 2019 #10 RANKED BEACH BLITZ Finalists and Captains, 2019 #11 RANKED BATTLESHIP BLAST Semi-finalists, 2019 #2 JPL INVENTION CHALLENGE 2018

Leticia Schow

LETICIA SCHOW, an upcoming star within Team 4079 has just been named as Secondary Driver for FRC. While only being on the team for two months, she has managed to show her dependability and passion for our team. We are so excited to spotlight Lety in this issue because she has proven to exemplify the values that our team strives to encompass. Q: WHY DID YOU JOIN FRC? A: I’ve been interested in robotics for a while, but I just never thought about joining. FRC didn’t have as great of an outreach these past two years so I never really understood what this club has to offer. I didn’t really know much about this club. However, this past year I realized that this team is actually pretty cool and does a lot of hands-on work. Q: DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO DO IN THE FUTURE? A: I’m not too sure but I’m thinking about web design. Something related to software engineering probably. Q; WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR INTERESTS OUTSIDE OF ROBOTICS? A: I’ve actually started doing some rock climbing with my dad. There’s this gym nearby that we usually go to. It has been pretty fun and thrilling when I get to climb. Q: DO YOU HAVE ANY TRIUMPHS OR CHALLENGES AS AN FRC MEMBER? A: My favorite part about the team is definitely the people. To be honest, everyone is really friendly and welcoming which I really appreciate. The community is very open to underclassmen. And my least favorite parts would probably be the learning curve for the robot. It was a bit confusing trying to figure out the controls. Q: HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE UPCOMING COMPETITION? A: I haven’t had too much practice yet so I feel okay but mostly just worried that I might mess up and push the arms too far by accident. But yeah, overall I feel pretty good about it.

Q: WHAT DOES YOUR POSITION AS FRC SECONDARY DRIVER ENTAIL? A: Basically this means that I control the “arms” of the robot. On our FRC robot, one of the features that it has is the ability to climb and hang onto the “Shield Generator” by controlling the arms. The challenge is that when we go to hang on the generator, it acts like a seesaw around a fulcrum, forcing me to balance. I can do this by adjusting the arms to different positions stabilizing the robot. I haven’t had much practice yet, but I am getting to compete for the first time during our Beach Blitz competition. Q: WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO TRY OUT FOR SECONDARY DRIVER? A: Honestly, some people kind of pushed me to try out because I wasn’t too sure about it beforehand. When I found out about the open position ,it seemed pretty interesting getting to control the robot. I’m really happy that the others pushed me to apply because I really enjoy it now. Q: HOW HAS YOUR EXPERIENCE BEEN WITH DRIVING SO FAR? A: I haven’t had too much time to do practice, but Fernando [Primary FRC Driver] has been showing me the ropes for every aspect of being a driver. I’ve been learning random things like how to mount the robot on our cart, the basics for enabling a robot, and a lot of other techniques that I didn’t expect to learn when becoming a driver. My experience has been mostly exciting getting to see the robot complete tasks.

A majority of our members this year are underclassmen so we are really impressed with how proactive they have been. Lety especially, has been a really great member overall. We are really excited to see how she is going to progress within the coming years!

Pictured: Top - Leticia Schow with Lead Driver, Fernando Rodriguez, and Software Alumni Mentor, Eric Wang Left - Leticia with fellow teammate Abigail Yee working on our team's publicity bot, which is projected to be released later this year.

Mechanical The FRC Game is a complex system filled with various objectives and different paths to reach those goals. As scoring points often requires unique interactions with game components, we need specific mechanisms on our robot. The Mechanical Department is in charge of designing and constructing these machines. In the past, they have created various subsystems such as an Elevator, Climber, Low Dumper, High Shooter, and Flywheel, among others. They deal with motors and other tools like sprockets, chains, belts, and gearboxes. Some of the tasks they are in charge of include CAD, designing, and machining.

Electrical In order to bridge the different mechanical components of the robot and utilize software to control the mechanism, the electrical systems are needed. The Electrical Department is responsible for all such wiring, electrical devices, and sensors. They start the season by wiring the Drive Train, a group of components that deliver power to the driving wheels. In the past, they have created Test Boxes and Systems for the software team to test, designed and fabricated the Electrical Board, and created multiple PCBs. Some of the tasks they are in charge of include soldering, motion control, and power delivery.

Software The Electrical and Mechanical Departments each create different structures that are responsible for different functions of the robot. The Software Department is in charge of programming to integrate both these systems to control the robot. In the past, software created a Vision program that used a Jevois camera with a ring light to detect targets. They use this program to identify how far they are from the target, allowing the driver to gain a better understanding of the position of the robot. They also use encoders put on the Drive Train by the Electrical Department for autonomous driving. The Software Department is also responsible for Java and Python programming, PID programming, and management & operator control.

Operations Technical and hands-on activities aside, our FRC team also consists of a publicity department that actively seeks to communicate our mission -- learn, compete, and thrive. Operations focuses on publicizing our team to the community, sharing various media and updates of our team with students, parents, and sponsors. The department creates videos, posters, and newsletters that represent our team. While the operations department does not physically work on building and maintaining the robot, the entire branch works hard to support the team and make sure the team can keep on running.

FTC Kickoff FTC Kickoff marks the start of the 2021 season, where game rules and criteria for the competition are revealed. While the FRC kickoff is still months away, the FTC Kickoff was held on September 18. Members watched the live stream and game reveal, split into groups to go over the game manual and create potential strategies, all while bonding with the rest of the team. As the first Kickoff ever for FTC Team 19812, thank you to everyone who attended and helped make this Kickoff a success!

Preparing for Beach Blitz

Beach Blitz 2021 starts on Friday, November 5th, but officially kicks off with matches on Saturday, November 6th! The game for this year uses the ruleset of the previous season’s “Infinite Recharge”, where a heavy emphasis is placed on collecting and launching balls into certain hoops to score points. In preparation for the event, our last few meetings have been dedicated to restoring and improving our previous robot for the 2020-2021 season: Lightspeed! From redesigning our intake and storage manipulators to performing maintenance on our software, we know that we are now ready to challenge the roughly 3 dozen teams in attendance!

Publicity Robot

As a fun off-season project, our team decided to start designing and building a fun “Publicity Bot”. Equipped with car horns, speakers, RGB lights, and a rapid fire t-shirt cannon, our robot is designed to attract a little bit of attention at events. Capable of moving at a max speed of 20mph, this robot can hold and launch 10 preloaded t-shirts 100 ft to 150 ft in the air - providing fun prizes for our peers. So far, we have been able to assemble and test the t-shirt launchers. As of now, we are constructing the general structure to hold the shooter, Drive Train, and other pieces before we begin wiring and coding the functionality of the robot.

PURPOSE Shoot t-shirts, advertise team, build hype at rallys, school events (B2S Night, Club Rush, Steam-a-Palooza, etc.) STATS Shoots 10 t-shirts w/o reloading. Car horn. Speakers. RGB lights Can travel 20mph Can shoot 100-150 ft STATUS Currently building the structure (drive train, support structure), tested the pneumatic shooter, fabricating parts (barrels, articulation plates, etc) GOALS Assemble the shooter, indexing mechanism, & articulation mechanism Complete Electrical systems and programming

Upcoming schedule November 2021 November 4th: Miscellaneous/Operations Awards Open Chairman’s Award Woodie Flowers Award Dean’s List Award November 5th - 7th: Beach Blitz 2021 November 13th: FTC Meet 0 November 21st - 27th: Thanksgiving Break

December 2021 December 2nd: Safety Animation Award Closes December 4th: FTC Meet 1 December 19th - 31st: Winter Break

From the operations directors Dear readers, Thank you for your endless support in the development of our teams following Quarantine. As some of you may or may not know, we actually planned on releasing newsletters prior to the COVID hit. We are so excited to have stronger resources which enables us to share our team with you on a more intimate level. Throughout the making of this issue, we have made it a priority to build strong foundations for our new FIRST Tech Challenge team. This year we have the pleasure of working with such a proactive Operations team. Although we assigned this project to them not too long ago, they were ready to handle the fast-paced nature of our team. As a new operations team, we’ve been through a few challenges such as finding meeting times that work, adjusting to a COVID-friendly environment, and working with the district to have our mentors on campus. Despite this, the hard-work from both our members and support from our sponsors have helped us provide opportunities for incoming first-years to learn about the real life applications of STEM. This is only the first issue of the year, and we can’t wait to share with you our future projects as the year progresses. As seniors, we realize that it is now our turn to pave the way for future leaders in OA Robotics. We hope that we can preserve the memories that we have shared in this team with you all as time passes. Sincerely, Abdullah Fattahi and Donna Le OA Robotics Operations Directors 2021-2022

Designed and edited by: OA Robotics Operations FRC Team 4079 | FTC Team 19812 The Quantum Leap Sponsored by: