Difference between revisions of "Downingtown Area Robotics"

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:FIRST Robots are large, at 28" * 38" * 60" and weigh up to 120 pounds (without battery or bumpers).  You are given an initial kit of parts.  You can buy or fabricate most any other part that you need from any source. The robot can be either bolted, riveted, glued or welded, no tape is allowed. The robot must be designed, built and tested in six weeks.  There is a limit on the numbers and types of motors that you can use. The robot is powered by a single 12 volt battery.   
 
:FIRST Robots are large, at 28" * 38" * 60" and weigh up to 120 pounds (without battery or bumpers).  You are given an initial kit of parts.  You can buy or fabricate most any other part that you need from any source. The robot can be either bolted, riveted, glued or welded, no tape is allowed. The robot must be designed, built and tested in six weeks.  There is a limit on the numbers and types of motors that you can use. The robot is powered by a single 12 volt battery.   
  
::'''Team 1640 competed''' at the [[DEWBOT VI Finger Lakes Regional‎ | Finger Lakes (RIT, Rochester NY 4-6 Mar-2010)]] and [[DEWBOT VI Philadelphia Regional |Philadelphia (Drexel, Philadelphia PA 25-27 Mar-2010)]] Regional Competitions! We've also competed at [[DEWBOT VI PARC XIII | PARC XIII]], [[DEWBOT VI Monty Madness | Monty Madness]], and [[DEWBOT VI Bridgewater Battle | Bridgewater-Raritan Battle Royale]] off-season events.  The team has been awarded two engineering awards for DEWBOT VI's novel drive-train.  Come out an support the team!
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::'''Team 1640 competed''' at the [[DEWBOT VI Finger Lakes Regional‎ | Finger Lakes (RIT, Rochester NY 4-6 Mar-2010)]] and [[DEWBOT VI Philadelphia Regional |Philadelphia (Drexel, Philadelphia PA 25-27 Mar-2010)]] Regional Competitions! We've also competed at [[DEWBOT VI PARC XIII | PARC XIII]], [[DEWBOT VI Monty Madness | Monty Madness]], and [[DEWBOT VI Bridgewater Battle | Bridgewater-Raritan Battle Royale]] off-season events.  The team has been awarded two engineering awards for DEWBOT VI's novel drive-train.  Come out and support the team!
 
   
 
   
  

Revision as of 15:33, 3 June 2010

Team members: Please look at the Team Announcement page to find the latest on the schedule, events, etc. Remember to read about Current Events coming your way, and the News of what we've done!



Congratulations to Foster Schucker and Steve Rhoads for winning Mentor of the Year at the VEX World Championships


Team photo at Finger Lakes Regional|Shipping panels

Who we are

Downingtown Area Robotics in Downingtown Pennsylvania, is a group of Students, Mentors and Sponsors, that knows it's important to get students interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) based careers. We do this through competition robotics. Our robots work in teams of two or three, working together as team on a common goal (not the robots that try to destroy each other.)

Driving the robots in Competitions is a small part of what we do. From the beginning we teach each roboteer valuable life skills like communications, planning, getting a group consensus, cooperation and negotiations. We also bring to life STEM skills in areas of electronics, mechanics, pneumatics, programming by planning, designing, building (and sometimes rebuilding), testing and driving our robots.

Contact us at DEWBOTROBOT at Yahoo dot com for more information.

Competitions

We build robots for three different competitions, FIRST Robotics Competition the VEX Robot Challenge and the FIRST Lego League.

"FRC Logo"
FIRST Robots are large, at 28" * 38" * 60" and weigh up to 120 pounds (without battery or bumpers). You are given an initial kit of parts. You can buy or fabricate most any other part that you need from any source. The robot can be either bolted, riveted, glued or welded, no tape is allowed. The robot must be designed, built and tested in six weeks. There is a limit on the numbers and types of motors that you can use. The robot is powered by a single 12 volt battery.
Team 1640 competed at the Finger Lakes (RIT, Rochester NY 4-6 Mar-2010) and Philadelphia (Drexel, Philadelphia PA 25-27 Mar-2010) Regional Competitions! We've also competed at PARC XIII, Monty Madness, and Bridgewater-Raritan Battle Royale off-season events. The team has been awarded two engineering awards for DEWBOT VI's novel drive-train. Come out and support the team!


"VEX Logo"
VEX Robots must fit into an 18" cube and do not have a weight limit. Parts may only be purchased from VEX, but they can be cut and shaped any way provided there are no sharp edges. Parts may only be bolted together, no assembly with glue or tape is allowed. There is a limit of ten motors and/or servos. The robot is powered by a single 7.2 volt battery.
We have 8 teams that participate in the VEX Robot Challenge. In 2010 Team 80 - Pegasus along with Team 81 Longshot went to the VEX World Championships. Two of our mentors, Foster Schucker and Steve Rhoads were awarded Mentor of the Year.
Our regular season is from September to May, but we do summer activities. Starting in fall of 2010 we will be competing under the name VEX-MEN (yes, a play on X-Men).


"FLL Logo"link=http://usfirst.org
FIRST Lego League are smaller robots that are made out of Lego parts. Teams build robots to perform autonomous missions. These missions may require the robot to do one or more steps. This is a very exiting robot competition allowing students to bring special skills to the competition table.
The 2009/2010 FLL competition season is over, but watch this space, we are planning a spring session to do a different set of missions. See us at the May 3 Science Fair


Teams

There are a number of teams that make up Downingtown Area Robotics(FRC, VRC and FLL):

FIRST Robotics Competition -- FRC Team 1640, Team Sab-BOT-age - Every year we build a new robot, they are all called DEWBOT (from Downingtown East and West roBOT) and are numbered. The 2010 robot is called DEWBOT VI. Start with the overview of DEWBOT VI to get an idea about this years game Breakaway and our robot.
Downingtown Area Robotics (FRC & Vex)
VEX Robot Challenge -- VRC Team 80 -- our "All girl team" for 2009-2010
VEX Robot Challenge -- VRC Team 81
VEX Robot Challenge -- VRC Team 82
VEX Robot Challenge -- VRC Team 84
VEX Robot Challenge -- VRC Team 89
VEX Robot Challenge -- VRC Team 90
VEX Robot Challenge -- VRC Team 92
VEX Robot Challenge -- VRC Team 96
VEX Robot Challenge -- VRC Team 98
VEX Robot Challenge -- VRC Team 1640


FIRST Lego League -- FIRST Lego League 2009 Teams 2028 & 7230

Meeting Information

Team Sab-BOT-age, the FRC team and the VRC teams meet year round. Below is the latest information on their meeting times and places.

FRC Team 2010 Season -- DEWBOT VI - Please look at the FRC 2010 Calendar to see all the work nights in the build season. Team members should also check the Team Announcement page for the latest updates.

VEX 2009-10 Season -- Wednesday 6:30-8:30 Downingtown Educational Center. Our 2009-2010 season playing Clean Sweep (info and schedule) has started. VEX parents please read Clean Sweep Newsletter 17 February

Watch this Clean Sweep Video and think of cool ideas.
We have started an "All-Girl" VEX Team 80 - Pegasus, come join them

FIRST Lego League -- The season for our FIRST Lego League team is over. Watch for news of our spring missions.

Come to one of our team meetings or contact us: Dewbotrobot at Yahoo dot com

Other committee meetings

The Steering Committee meets on the last Friday of the month at 6:15PM With build season going on and there being a large number of the Steering Committee at the build sessions, there are no formal meeting until the last Friday in April. If you have an item for the Steering Team contact them at the build session.

People

"People Names""

Thank you very much to all of our sponsors!

We would like to express our appreciation to all of our Mentors that work with the roboteers on a day to day basis.

Each student that worked on a robot is listed with that robot. Across the years we have graduated some very impressive students, you may be or soon will be working for our Alumni.

And a final thank you to all the parents that help us out.

Engineering

We do a lot of engineering. There are a lot of details and information that go into making a robot right. For example if you are going to drill a hole for an 8-32 screw you use a #16 drill, but if you want to tap the hole (thread it) you use a #29 drill. Most of us can't remember all that, so we've created a series of pages that holds all that information.

Click here for Engineering references and links.

Safety

We are very safety oriented, we have a safety captain to monitor all aspects of our build process.

All of our middle school students are trained on hand tools before they are allowed to use them. They use hacksaws and files while wearing safety glasses. Middle schoolers are supervised by either a mentor or one of our senior FRC students while they cut and form metal parts.

All of our high school students are trained on the power tool before they use it. Safety eyeware is worn at all times in the shop. First year FRC roboteers may only use power tools under the supervision of a mentor or one of our senior FRC students.

We hold regular safety meetings to reinforce our safety policy.

Website

The Downingtown Area Robotics website is made with valid XHTML and CSS and complies with Section 508 accessibility guidelines. This site is powered by MediaWiki, the same software that powers Wikipedia.

As of 1 March 2010 there were over 225 pages of content, 1900 pictures (with captions) and 250 documents that describe our robots. If you have problems finding a specific page, try the search box at the left.

If you have questions or comments please contact us at DEWBOTROBOT at yahoo dot com.