Dead Robot Society Blog

Score: 127, Victory

Let me just tell you, Botguy was as close to the line as he could possibly be without actually touching the line. Curses. Oh well, a win is a win. We also somehow managed to not get all seven ducks on the line and not drop any sponges on oil slicks. We still scored over a hundred though. Win? I think so.

We were actually competing against the team we share a table with. Even though we were competitors, we wished the best for them and they were happy for us when we won. It could be because this is a double elimination tournament so we didn’t knock them out, but I like to think it’s because we’re good sports. Either way, it was a great start.

…and the pain of making them.

Yes I’ve been making a movie on behalf of the Dead Robot Society. I call it a movie but I suppose it’s really more like a music video of sorts. Basically what I’m doing is recording my teammates dancing, singing, and being generally entertaining to the song “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas. It’s quite an experience. Let me just tell you a little bit about what making the movie entails.

The first thing I wanted to see in the video was my teammates mouthing a couple of the lyrics in the song. Apparently it was harder than it looked because it took on average about four tries for anyone on the team, mentors included, to get the timing right. The outtakes are for more amusing than the actual clips I used for the video, which are pretty amusing. A lot of the video is us saying the words to the song. I’m sure my companions got sick of me sticking a camera in their face, but Mr. Gras insisted so there wasn’t much I could do about it.

The boys in the middle of filming.

Another thing we did was act out the words of the song. When I say we acted out the words, what I actually mean is we made Kelly act out some of the words. Her parts were my favorite parts of the movie. Pay close attention to the girl with the curly brown hair in the school uniform when you watch the video. Sometimes the acting we did wasn’t limited to the words of the song though. Like Miss Allison for example, merely acted bored for many chunks of the video. (We’ve yet to determine if she was actually acting.) There were some other parts we acted as well, but I can’t give everything away now can I?

Besides acting things out, there was also quite a bit of random dancing. A lot of that was again provided by Allison, although she had help from Mary and some of the other team members. Random dancing was a crucial part of our video. Without it, I might not have been able to have enough footage to complete the movie.

In addition to our own personal embarrasing moments, there are many failures from our robots incorperated into the film. Most of them are duck grabbing fails, but if memory serves I believe there are a few other fails as well. There are alos juggling fails, but that wasn’t a robot, that was Steven.

The movie was really fun and really challenging to make. Watching the clips of everyone regardless of whether they failed or succeeded was highly enjoyable. Making the movie was also a lot of work. First of all, I had a deadline for the first time. I was used to watching my teammates race against the clock, but I was always able to do my job at a leisurely pace. In contrast, with regards to the movie, Mr. Gras wanted it finished by regionals so I had to work quickly. Secondly, and more importantly, I had to listen to that song. I didn’t even like the song in the first place. Plus it’s not like I got to just listen to it on repeat. I had to keep rewinding and listening to three second clips over and over again. It was terrible. However, whenever I watch the finished product, someone thanks me for doing it, or someone comments on how much they enjoyed it, I realize it was all worth it.

(Pssst, here’s the link:) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko3CpFJ0unw

That I’m gonna hate this song very quickly.

Finally some footage has been taken four our video that I promised four blogs ago. Didn’t you know blogs were a unit of time measurement? Anyways, we’ve picked a song for the video and in case you didn’t catch it from the title of this post, we’ve picked “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas. I can’t give you too many details because I don’t want to spoil the song, however I can tell you that I’ll have heard it so much by the time we finish the video, I will never want to hear it again. But  I promise you guys will want to watch the video, it will be very amusing.

There are only three weeks left until competition and the team is responding accordingly. Everyone is trying to come two or three times a week. There’s a lot of movement in the BotCave these days as well. Software writes code, downloads it, takes it to the board, tests it, and repeats the process. I’ve noticed that software requires a lot of tweaking. When they run the program with the bot on the board, I’m always impressed. However they always return to their station and adjust the turns by a couple of degrees or the speed by a couple of seconds. I guess this whole process is why the Dead Robot Society has always been so successful.

Hardware is working on the basket of the create bot. The basket will bring the frogs and BotGuy to our wetlands after the arm of the create bot has knocked them off the platform. The hardware guys tell me that the basket will be finished today. I believe, don’t quote me on this, that the completion of the basket will mark the completion of the create bot. Well the building of the create bot at least. Like I said before software will probably continue to enhance the code for it.

We're actually almost done I swear.

In summation, I will tell you that as usual, the Dead Robot Society has had a tremendously prolific four hours together. I probably sound redundant, constantly telling you that we accomplished a lot. I really do mean it though. Every time we get together we work hard and see results. The demonstrations I saw today were pretty excellent, aside from the fact that I barely escaped a near fatal collision with the arm of create bot. Okay I might be exaggerating on the whole “near fatal” thing. So don’t fear, it’s always safe in the BotCave.

Today we had two Dead Robot Society alumni come visit the BotCave.

As a current member of the team I thought it was pretty cool that this organization made a large enough impact on people’s lives that they actually came back to visit years after they left the team. To me this says that the things I learn and the people I meet here will stay with me as I continue with my  life.

Alright enough of that sentimental stuff cause there’s only so much of it I can take. The hard work everyone has been putting in for the last few months is really starting to show. Even those of us who are technologically challenged (and as usual by “us” I of course mean me) are able to see the fruits of hardware and software’s labor. The robots appear to be almost completely built. At least to me they do. Software  has successfully run a program that allows the robot to move to the platform and knock the frogs and BotGuy off. I know this is really important because ever since the first day I got here the team has been talking about getting those items off the platform as the first priority. Go team!

You’ll notice that I knew exactly what software was doing. This is a great improvement. I was able to put it  in better words that someone from the actual software team was. When I asked Kelly what software was doing today she answered me with “We’re getting the things off the thing.” Fortunately Allison was able to better explain what they got done today which is good because then I was able to tell you. Also we were apparently so productive we had time to watch the Caps in overtime. Obviously this is a positive thing and not at all a sign of slacking.

Today we were all in a rather joking mood. “Drinks anyone?” “Thin mints.” “Thin mints is not a drink.” There was some fist pumping in there somewhere too. However words cannot do any justice to the greatest joke of the day. It can only be captured in a picture.

Only in the BotCave

I think Mr. Gras got too much of a kick out of that. Sometimes, just sometimes I wish I had another blogger with me. An English person, not a math person, to make grammar jokes to. But alas, I am on a robotics team and therefore math jokes will ensue. Even though I may not be fond of pi and imaginary numbers, I do enjoy being a part of this team. Besides the fact that we’re totally boss and we win all the time, we work well together and today was no exception.