Crash Course

Our Robot-Photo by Michael Leonffu

Crashing

The goal of this year, in the robot game, is to launch small whiffle balls into an elevated goal with unknown orientation. So far the team has not made a successful launcher. The only prototype, which took weeks to build, doesn't work. I'm in AP Physics and personally I've been applying it, even so, theories and plans don't build robots.

Game Elements
Goals are the big red and blue thing-Photo by Michael Leonffu

So the crash in crash course? It's not the typical course where you'd learn content. This literally is a crash course, the current course we're on is crashing. With only four weeks left, no robot, no plan, no parts coming in our team is set to crash. This reminds me of last year, when I was captain, although I'd spend countless hours on my free time just building robots which we'd use and we'd win. I don't want that this year. Our wake up call? It was just a simple email received one morning like any other email: the parts we're ordering is out of stock. Our main parts, the ones that run the whole robot, is out of stock and at four weeks left that means no robot.

Test Robot for Software
Photo by Michael Leonffu

Course

Our team captain is a good guy; our team is a good team; our best are the very best; our skill and passion are above all others; but it's not enough. It's difficult. So this is my plan: we recap everything and treat this as a crash course again. There are finer details such as: dividing hardware into two groups one focusing on a different method, assuming that our parts will never arrive on time, of shooting projectiles and the other group making the other stuff on the robot. Personally I can build this whole robot, I just don't want to. I don't want to build this whole robot and neglect rookies. In the end it's not about the score we get but it's about how many people we've inspired.