Updates From The Build

Ah, the sweet smell of success. All the way around, it was a grand success. The team is still in the top five, with only one loss and the highest score of all the qualifying matches. This means that scouting matters this year more than ever, and our scouts have met the challenge with the most complete data base out of all our years. For the first time, we will be in the picking and get to choose an alliance. Yet, on to the really good stuff.

No matter if we win or not, we have taken home the two awards. First off, we got the Engineering Innovation award, thanks in part to Harrison Koza, who excellently put into words just how Orion works. A great job to him and others who were brave enough to talk to the judges, and helped us win this prestigious award.

Then, of course, I saved my personal favorite for last. This site won the website award!

Robert, the award, and the prize winning site!

More than that, it goes on to be judged at nationals, regardless whether we make it or not. So, in a way, a little piece of us will be guaranteed it’s place in the final showdown for top honors at nationals.  Thanks to all the people who helped make this site as informative, creative, and helpful as it could be.

Just one more look at the beauty…

A closer look at the web award

Ah….Anyway, the work ain’t done yet. With one day of competition left, and finals to contend with, tomorrow will be rigorous and rewarding. Wish us luck, and we’ll report back tomorrow.

You have got to be a part of this!

Out of Orbit is performing extremely well in the qualifying rounds. We have won five out of five matches, while scoring a great amount of points! Generally, we have scored highest on our alliance in most matches.  That leaves us seated second – but scored equal with the first-seated team!!!!!

Our drivers have definitely loosened up!  We now see Orion screaming down the field, when it’s open, and succeeding at a high percentage of attempts at scoring.  Way to go drivers!

Our scouting and spirit teams are in high energy, to say the least!  Go to our gallery and check out yesterday’s photos.  Stay tuned for today’s!

Come on out to Hamilton High School.  Matches end around 5:30 this evening.  Then, tomorrow, opening ceremonies start at 9:00 with matches resuming immediately after.

This is it!  The day has finally arrived!

Today is Thursday, the first of a three-day competition event.  This day is dedicated to setting up and testing the robot, the pit, the drivers, the team. So far, we are passing with Out of Orbit colors.

Robert has done a great job with pre-match scouting.  With good organization and training of eager scouts, the entire list was completed fairly early in the day.  Now, we know what the teams believe their strong-points are.  The practice matches will be telling.

Our drivers conquered their first practice match in style.   They placed one piece on the highest peg and one on the lowest.  And now, they have a feel for what the real playing field is like.  We’re hoping that as the competition heats up, they become the ones to apply the pressure to the other teams.

Our pit crew has been working hard and has the space well-organized.  Some decorating is still needed – after all, we want the world to know who we are!

Well, enough for now.  I HAVE to get back to the team!  Please stay tuned.  We’ll update when we can, but no wifi on the site, so even this brief into came at the expense of a little break from the excitement.

Do you have a comment or a question about our team or website? Well, you are in the right place to do it! This is where you can comment here. We would love to hear from you.

Well, it has been a rush watching all the pieces fit together. We have until Tuesday the 22nd, so it is really coming down to the wire

To start with, there is some exciting website news. We submitted this site for the Website Award! We aren’t sure whether that means we can edit beyond the updating of the blog and photos,  so once we know, we will update what we can. One major victory down!

As you can see, we have gone far on the robot since our past report. The arm has come together.  The mast is assembled and installed with special thanks to Southwest Water Jet, who worked the awesome design into the mast in addition to cutting out other pieces for us. Our programmers have come through, making driving easy with only a few glitches. The electronics have been installed on the chassis and wiring is wrapping up as we speak. One nagging part of the progress has been construction of the bumpers.  But we think we’ve designed our best bumpers ever. So, we will go into competition stronger than ever, with a bot that is less complex than any other year, and therefore beautiful in its simplicity.