Where does the time go?!

Well, week one of build season has officially come and gone!!  I guess the old saying is right, "time flies when you're having fun".... or building a robot.  Since the kickoff video was released, FIRST Team Paragon (notice the use of Dean's Homework for any robotics nerd reading) has been working busily to complete a robot BEFORE the Hartford Regional this year.  For anyone not involved in robotics, six weeks seems like plenty of time to build a robot.  Sadly, this is not the case.  Six weeks is nothing as far as getting a machine working cohesively enough to complete a task goes, especially for a team full of teenagers.  Paragon actually had shirts made up that say "Will finish in Hartford".  HOWEVER!  This year is going to be different.  With the new addition of students from Cheney Tech, FIRST Team Paragon is doing better than ever.  After about three days of strategizing, the team came up with a pretty solid choice for robot design.  While mechanical immediately began prototyping and mocking ideas up in CAD, the rest of the team did basic preparation for the season.  Electrical cleaned and made battery leads, two very tedious tasks that have the ability to take up valuable build time.  Admin designed shirts and buttons, and made a new policy as far as picture taking goes (you take it, you resize and rename it before the night is out!).  Software has continued to learn and is exploring all of the new challenges that face the team in the upcoming competition season.  I can't give too much away, but our prototype is looking great!  The arm has been assembled in a way that will be greatly beneficial to this year's game, and our extended envelope (84 inches!) has given us a world of newpossibilities.  A chassis design has been decided upon and next to look at is the grabbing mechanism!  We're moving ahead at an amazing pace, and by the looks of it we will actually have drive practice before we ship!  Now we just have to hope that the rest of build season goes as well as week 1 and we need to keep in mind that none of it could be done without our extremely dedicated mentors!  So here's to an awesome build season!  Stay tuned for more updates!