Our team is divided into five committees:

Mechanical Drive Train Committee  

The responsibility of the drive-train committee is to construct the base of the robot. The drive train allows for the robot to be mobile. The drive train consists of wheels bolted to a chassis (the frame of the drive train). The wheels are set in motion through the rotation of a chain. Two gear boxes that are attached to the chassis facilitate the rotation of the chains.

The drive-train committee’s primary focus is designing the base of the robot and deciding on the type of wheels, sprockets, chassis, and chain necessary for the construction of the drive train. Additionally, the job of the committee is to assemble gear boxes. When completing these tasks, we learn the importance of measuring materials precisely and how to use the tools necessary for accurate measurements. We also learn how to think critically. For example, since there is a limited amount of materials, we must be able to optimize what is available. Furthermore, we learn how to create an effective design based on the desired function of the robot, and we also are trained to draw like an engineer. Finally, to put the design to life, we learn the basics of mechanical construction and how to use the tools necessary for construction.

Mechanical Manipulator Committee

 The Mechanical Manipulator Committee’s job is to create a mechanism that has the ability to interact with objects in the environment around it. A skill that is needed to be on the Mechanical Manipulator Committee is the ability to visualize movement and being able to translate that into a mechanical aspect. For example, the action of moving a box across a surface can translate to the mechanical movement of a piston moving in or out. This year, our committee made prototypes of different basketball shooters.  Members of the Mechanical Manipulator Committee learn about different actuators which cause different types of movement like pitch, yaw, roll, and translate.

Electrical Committee

The electrical board is a very vital part of the robot. Without it you won’t be able to do much with the robot. In the Electrical Committee, we learn a lot about wires, like the unit of size for the wires, which is gauge. Negative and positive charges are what make electricity interesting. If we fuse opposite charges, the battery will likely explode, so we get different colored wires to keep track of what charges are running through them. We send power to all components of the robot that need it through the power distribution board. Some components of the robot need more power than the rest, like motors for example. The motors need 40 amps, and all the other components need only 30 amps. Circuits are where the electricity travels. When two pieces of metal touch each other, electricity can travel through both of them. When the link between the two is broken, electricity only travels through one piece of metal and the other does not receive any.

Programming Committee

Programming is the component of the Robotics Team that brings the robot to life. We write code that makes the robot run autonomously as well as code that allows teleoperation (operation of a machine from a distance). Codes are the language in which the computer understands and gives the robot life as well as voluntary movement. Without programming the robot would not be able to move and be in essence useless. This year, we are using Java to program our robot. Previous languages we have used include C, C++, and LabView.

Executive Committee

The Executive Committee has many varying responsibilities. Although this committee is not as technical or manually labor intensive, without it the team would not be able to sustain itself. The Executive Committee strives to run our team like a business, which allows for a variety of people inside the group; you do not necessarily have to be one who excels at science to be productive. The Executive Committee is responsible for many different tasks, including designing and maintaining our website and social media outlets, providing the team with food in order to fuel our hard-working team, keeping attendance and managing permission slips, designing and ordering team apparel, and keeping track of how much we spend on our robot. We are the public relations aspect of our team, and our mission is to provide the team with resources so that we can keep the team going. We visit local stores to ask for support and donations, send out business plans and sponsorship proposals to different people and corporations, and head up fundraising events in order to spread awareness of our team and FIRST Robotics. It is also our mission to give recognition, thanks, and feedback to our generous partners and donors.

Contributions from E. Blandino, A. Iguina, J. Frost, D. Flowers, J. Samuels, A. Iguina, A. Rodriguez, V. Gonzalez