//Hey, I figured I'd better start spending some time back on the website.... so naturally I told somebody else to do it! Haha, actually, in addition to future updates, I will also be posting our monthly newsletters, starting with March (not necessarily because it is useful anymore, but because I got to start somewhere), oh, and one more note:

WE ARE GOING TO ATLANTA!!!!

Massive Kudos for Andrea Emma and Lonnie for putting such a powerful presentation together and the team as a whole for Rocking this year and receiving the coveted Engineering Inspiration Award!

This is a ride that starts fast and gets faster. Because you’re reading this, it assures that you will have the time of your life this March! Yes, you! Do not exit out of this PDF file. Your very life could depend on it. Seriously, we’re getting really sick of the growing lack of personal responsibility. EVERYBODY MUST CLEAN UP FOR 30 MINUTES MINIMUM before they leave each day. CLEAN EVERYTHING!

Okay, with that out of the way, this month is going to be filled with bushels of celebration! :P

Both of our window-rattling competitions are crashing into this month! If you have not turned in your permission slips for the San Diego and/or Las Vegas regional, you need to do that NOW. Get up and hand your go-slip to Isaac or Andrea.

We are carpooling to the San Diego Regional, so we need a head count, so TURN IN YOUR PERMISSION SLIPS! If you cannot turn your slips in, email Isaac so that we can accommodate you. We are meeting in the metal shop parking lot Thursday and Friday, and in the student parking lot on Saturday. Arrive at 7:00am.

Let’s go kick some metal buttocks! YEAH! xD

~Lonnie Mae

SPREAD THE WORD! Robotics competition: March 4th and 5th! Tell your friends, family, co workers, that random kid in your 3rd period that you’ve secretly had a crush on this entire semester! This will be EPIC. March forth onto March fifth! (Ha. Get it?)

Kickoff was AWESOME! Special thanks to 1538, the Holy Cows, for hosting us all at their school.

Thanks also to Canyon Crest Academy's Aluminum Narwhals for joining us in our first day of strategy and game simulation. Only four hours in and we have already experienced numerous epiphanies about our strategy for the next six weeks (hanging is awesome).

Just a reminder that in the coming week, we will be working on prototyping all the variations of the applicable systems for the Breakaway Bot (while we learned a lot, we didn't quite get through our agenda on Saturday, so starting today we will be creating strategy diagrams for the possible combinations of systems and variations before we break into groups and start building our foamy mock-ups).

We are reinstating the "Homework Hour" after school on weekdays, so actual work will begin at 4:30. We do, however, encourage students to stay in the metal shop classroom while they work, because it is both more efficient and the number one study habit of all time is WORK IN A GROUP!!!! COLLABORATE!!!! HELP EACH OTHER!!!! It's both in the spirit of FIRST and I care about your grades, also, it gives Kevin and Willie some time to get set up, and retain their sanity.

To all I wish an invigorating build season!

Isaac

A Very Bright Beginning

12/8/09

To Everyone who worked in the metal shop these past days, I hope you know just how amazing you all are. Two days and two disasters into The Foote and already all the machining is complete. This is really unprecedented efficiency for 2102!

After lacking metal, and then being shipped the wrong metal on day two, things were looking bleak for the Mecanum Chassis timeline, but somehow we ended up with a complete set of complete parts for the chassis, and some new screenprinted sweatshirts, (which, by the way, are gorgeous)!

The turnout was amazing, and all you freshmen out there duly impressed us with your incredible enthusiasm and quick learning (and I am not making that up about the quick learning. You successfully made workable schematics out of Solidworks models, and walked through the entire fabrication process from rough cut to squaring to freshman bevel)! I'm sensing great things from the group this group of kids. The teamwork and camaraderie seemed to be oozing out of the walls of the shop and room 110. This is definitely going to be an awesome year.

Starting tomorrow we will jump right into the welding, electronics, and drive systems. Let's hope we're ready!

GO PARADOX!

-Isaac S.

The Mecanum Bot

November 23, 2009

First, much thanks are owed to Kevin for getting the Paradox Blog up and running. I feel that now with this and the newsletter (as well as the other fixes Kevin made to the website) Team Paradox finally has a legitimate online presence again.

Today marked the groundbreaking of the preseason finale project: The Mecanum Bot! (Dubbed "The Foote"). This afternoon in room 100 seven of us got together to set goals and brainstorm models for the design of the chassis. With the ultimate purpose of carrying Kevin around on its back, we decided to go with a triangular trussed crossbar design for strength, lightness, and ease of construction.

Thank you very much to all who attended, and kudos on all the wonderful designs. While we are going to go with the Tatiana/Isaac/Willie design, I also want to go over the arched and keystone designs with our mentors and teachers, because while we are not using them for this project, I want to keep them in our peripheral vision. Any sort of expansion on the clubs overall knowledge base is awesome, and these designs have the possibility of solving weight and support issues that Buttercup faced. I'll email those involved with more info.

In other fantastic news, the Street Fair was wildly successful! Thank you very much Annie and Karen for working so hard on putting this together. Technically, this was about 1000% as successful as our previous Street Fair appearances, and I would venture to boost the number even higher due to the massive crowds we drew!

Go 2102!

Isaac S.

Mid November Update

Today was explosive. At a staff meeting the principle, Mr. Grove, announced that our sponsorship pursuits with SAIC had gone through, and they had donated, not one, not two, not even six thousand dollars, but thirty-four thousand, eight hundred dollars to Team Paradox. Andrea cried. That's our entire budget. With the rest of the money we had made from other sponsors, we now have the ability to roll out our budget ten thousand dollars for two years in advanced, as well as starting a small scholarship program to help students meet the traveling fees for our 2010 Las Vegas regional. The entire faculty was getting excited about this, even my English teacher.

In other news, we have planned out the rest of the preseason and are going to be constructing a practice chassis with an experimental drive train inspired by the Omni model Segway Robotic Mobility platforms. The purpose of the experiment is to give new members a taste of what build season will be like, with more hardcore hands on experience with designing and building something new, to get the innovative juices flowing.

On the marketing side, sweatshirt and t-shirt designs have been completed, and sweatshirt production is slated to be completed before winter break. Graced with Suki's beautiful robotic wings, these are going to be fantastic. T shirt production is still in the planning phases. The design is complete, but sweatshirts are the current priority. We can however, tell you that T shirts will be five dollars each when released.

Also, Annie's team of marketing minions has been voraciously at work making artistic gift-card holders to sell at the Encinitas Street Fair, where robotics will be advertising itself to raise awareness, and spread the holiday goodness of Robotics coffee (delicious) as well as the aforementioned gift-card holders (beautiful). Additionally, robotics will be investing in 250 custom printed reusable grocery bags. These we intend to sell to make some spare change, but primarily to raise awareness in the community (picture 200 mom's assaulting Trader Joe's with there Paradox robotics grocery bags). My personal opinion is that these are the coolest thing that has ever happened to errand running. I have a feeling that I am going to cause a spike in local business just for an excuse to use these.

Finally, an FLL tournament is in the works to be held for our local teams at SDA.

Things are starting to really pick up fast. It's not even december yet, but I'm already gearing up for January... this year is going to be awesome.

-SDA Robotics Team Paradox