We made it to bag day! We reasembled our robot and made some finshing touches. We added some protective lexan to shelid or electronics, spruced up our pnumatics and wiring and baged at midnight.
this past week we have been building and programing at a frantic rate.
i would like to say we can cool down, but that would not be true. With only two weeks until our first regional we have tons to do. Handouts, finishing code and producing spare parts are aall on the too do list. We look forward to seeing everyone in Duluth.
Keep on Krawling

Coming back from the practice competition that team 2518 held yesterday, team 2052 has much left to do and much to be proud of.
Firstly we won the free throw contest, scoring seven out of ten shots. Secondly we received an award from Inver Hills Community College for our rotating turret. Our turret was programed to track the target and position itself facing the hoops if it didn't hit a limit switch.
We ran into a few problems as well. Our Bridge lowering device broke. We underestimated how strong the device needed to be to go up against the bridge. In the end the bridge won the fight popping the rivets from the device.
Our turret also malfunctioned during our last two matches, requiring some code alterations.

Sorry this is a little late, team 2052 has been in a building frenzy. We have finished our frame, outfitting it with mechainum wheels. We tested these wheels with our logomotion bot on the bridge, they worked great.
We have also decided on a shooter that resembles a pitching machine. It consists of four wheels and two motors on one shaft, which compresses the ball against a back wall untill shooting. We are curently finishing the shooter and are getting it read to hook to a lazy susan. Yea! That is right, the shooter is going to spin 180 degrees.

So this week we have gotten the list of requirements done and ranked. So far this week we have been taking a closer look at how the game is played and what would be the best way for the game to be played, we ended up being robots in 2 games this week. We have not started building it, just have starting drawings. It has been a busy week. Hopefully we get the game peices built and frame started in this next week. Good luck all FIRST teams.

Tomorrow we will be a week into the 2012 build season. that means only five weeks left! For all you FIRST members out there, you know what that means. For those that are not a part of FIRST, one, consider joining, and two, it means that we will be busy.
Team 2052 has jumped head first into the design process. We are currently in the process of listing all possible features we wish our bot to have. This will be followed by ordering these features as out team deems important. We will build the most important features first leaving the not so important ones as extra bonus features.

Ten of us are sitting here at the University of Minnesota. The ancipation in the room is palpable. Looking at the kit of parts pickup list brings many questions and much excitment. Why are we getting a single t-shirt. And we are getting Microsoft Kinect!
25 minutes and counting. Now all we have to do is wait.
Keep on Krawling

The excitement grows in team 2052 as we near kickoff. The team is all set for this years build season, having practices the design method, creating a plan, and ordering tasks in order of importance. With a few practice competitions our rookies and veteran members alike are ready to go.
Tomorrow is the day the FRC community has been waiting for all year. The anticipation among team 2052 may be more concentrated then a kid at Christmas. We gladly give up or Saturday freedom for the next six weeks as well as our weekly down time as we work, stress, and build together.
So as we wake up at 6 a.m. on a Saturday, we wake up happy knowing that build season has started!
Keep on Krawling

Happy holidays guys! Kick off is just around the corner so enjoy the break and relax as much as possible once build season appears there wont be much time between school and robotics. Don't put off your homework please, we will need everyone. This week we saw the new light bulbs and they looked really cool, different then what we already have. Have a good break and don't get in trouble, eat and sleep much, oh and don't forget to be merry!

The first 2012 clue was released this week. The item that caught the teams attention the most was the 2,500 LED lights in an array of colors. Possible ideas as to what the game will be include an Olympic oriented game due to the similarity of the colors of the lights and the colors of the Olympic rings.
A more complex and less serious idea came from one of our captains. The whole floor will be lined with the LED lights covered by Lexan. The goal of the robots is to drive over the lights embedded with sensors, turning on as many as they can by simply driving over them. Lights will change color if the opposing team runs over lights you have turned. The team with the most lights win!

The Irondale Robotics FIRST Team 2052, aka KnightKrawler, has started the preseason with a great start. Team 2052 participated in two warm up regional competitions which used the competition robot from the 2011 game called LogoMotion. LogoMotion consists of 2 minute, 15 second matches where three teams form an alliance to compete against an opposing alliance to score the most points by hanging tubes on a multi-level rack and deploying minibots to climb a pole. The game requires advanced strategy, complex programming, and use of engineering skills to design, build, and maintain the most efficient robot.