GameSlammer7

Update on the Inventor Design Competition

2009-05-10T10:17:00.001-07:00

The lastest news is that the top five inventor design finalists were recognized by the "Teddies and Phillies." Team 701 was recognized for the Best Presentation of an Assembly. We received in the mail just the other day several tutorial manuals and some Autodesk software (Inventor and Mechanical Desktop). They also sent a hat that has "Autodesk" written on the back and "Expert" writting on the

Sore news, but thankful nonetheless

2009-04-19T14:29:00.000-07:00

Well, the Awards for the Inventor Design Competition were put out last night, and the news is... Team 103 took the prize.That means team 701 did not, but we are honored to have been in the top five out of the nation.Good job Team 103:

Team 701 is still in the Competition

2009-04-10T17:25:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since any information has been posted here. That is because we went to Boston and made it to quarter finals. We received two trophies, but we lost the game. We went to Davis and made it to quarter finals. We received yet another trophy, but we lost the game again. We will not be going to Atlanta Georgia for the Nationals.Amidst all this, we had plenty of fun and we cherished

Davis Regional Update

2009-03-31T22:27:00.001-07:00

As I have had limited time (amidst college preperation and high school homework), I will simply post here the email that Mr. Green sent out to update on Davis:"Vanden Robotics Supporters: The Vanden High Robotics Team recently competed at the 2009 Davis Regional Robotics Competition against 43 other teams from California, Oregon, and Idaho. The Vanden Team won 6 of 9 matches, placing them in 8th

Davis Webcast!

2009-03-26T18:10:00.000-07:00

I found where the (link->)Davis Sacromento Regional Webcast (<-link) is going to be for Friday and Saturday! Clicking on the link should connect you to the webast through whatever media player your computer uses most. Also, if you wanted to still go in person, the invitation is here. The game times for Friday and Saturday are also on the invitation page, and are good approximates of then the

Davis Sacromento Regional

2009-03-25T23:35:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, Thursday, I go to the practice rounds for the Davis Regional. There is also a possibility that I may be chosen to be human player (the one on the sidelines who shoots moon rocks to score points), but that is not completely decided yet. Also, I tried to find a webcast link so those who could not make it could watch a couple matches online; I was unable to find such a webcast for the

Boston Videos and Davis Invite!

2009-03-22T14:40:00.000-07:00

In my pevious blog I mentioned that I had videos from Boston: Video of a match played by Team 701's robot: high speed connections Click Here low speed connections Click HereVideo of the Blue Man Group at the Boston Regional: high speed connections Click Here low speed connections Click HereIf you liked the video of the match, don't stop there! The Davis regional is this coming

Catching up on Boston

2009-03-17T12:50:00.000-07:00

So, Thursday in Boston, March 5, was the first day of practice matches. This allowed teams arriving to practice with their bot and fix any malfunctions.Friday, in Boston, March 6, was the first day of qualification matches. Teams were placed in random alliances of three. In each match a blue alliance and a red alliance would compete to either have their human players or their robots score the

First Day of Qualification Matches

2009-03-06T21:12:00.000-08:00

Again, I lack the time to post any pictures, though I have many. However, today was the first set of qualifying matches. The rankings are here. Basically, we we're paired up in such a way that by the end of five matches and a rematch, we we're ranked sixth out of several dozen teams. If we remain in the top eight tomorrow, then we will be able to choose our alliance early on, ensuring that we

Due to activity...

2009-03-05T20:39:00.001-08:00

Due to such an active practice day, I have much to do still, and little time to do it. I will have to postpone the uploading of today's pictures to a later time. Don't forget, however, that you can watch the Live Webfeed tomorrow of the Boston Regional at the website linked here and elsewhere on the blog!

A Day to Relax Before the Competition

2009-03-04T18:48:00.001-08:00

Today was visit MIT day for me, but it was rather cold especially when it was breezy. The snow was everywhere, but looked much better in the daylight than the dark the night before.The architecture around Boston is hundreds of years old, and most, but not all, of the architecture looked something like the nice house below.The public transportation we took to MIT appeared to be an efficient and

Comfy at the Boston Mariott

2009-03-03T22:22:00.001-08:00

or you Californians still in California, I am writing this blog at 10:22 pm. For Boston, it is 1:22 am. I'm still on California time, however, and tomorrow morning I sense that I may regret staying up this late. However, let me show you some evidence of our comfort:Tomorrow there will be three groups. The first group will get up around 6 am (3 am Pacific) to go on the Freedom Trail, a hike that

UPDATE BEFORE THE FLIGHT (and before the pack...)

2009-03-02T18:52:00.000-08:00

I've added the link to the introduction (see above) where you can watch Boston's Regional Live on March 6 & 7. Enjoy! Also, the weather is nasty so we are hoping that our flight will not be cancelled like all of yesterday's were. The last thing I wanted to point out is that Team 701 will be the ONLY California Robotics Team in Boston for the Boston Regional, so we intend to dress (if the Arena's

Autodesk Inventor Design Competition 2009

2009-02-28T17:36:00.000-08:00

Every year, aside from the Robotics Competition, Autodesk (a leading company in the computer aided drafting industry) lends out their latest version of Inventor to FIRST Teams to use in building their robot for the competition. Inventor is a program that allows you to test design ideas without wasting materials because it is a 3D modeling program. Everything can be drawn up on the computer first,

What is FIRST?

2009-02-25T18:01:00.001-08:00

FIRST is an organization started by Dean Kamen, a leading inventor in the U.S. and father of the Segway and more. FIRST stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, and each year a new game is presented to challenge teams across the U.S. to design and build a Robot and compete in said competition in just six weeks. This year's competition is Lunacy, and here is an