Buzz Robo t i c s : F IRST Team 1 7 5

Inside this Issue:

Thank You 2

Thank You / Working Away

3

Student Experiences 4

Meet A Few 20 Year Mentors

5

Senior Profile 6

Senior Profile 7

Student Thoughts 8

3D Printer 9

Issue 3 of 6: Middle Of Build Season

The Buzz

The Weekly Buzz Issue 2: January 30, 2015

PAGE 1

Middle Of Build

Published by: Kurtis Kalagher

Upcoming Fundraisers

10

Upcoming Fundraisers

11

Students Building A Scoring Platform

What’s this Twitter thing?

The Weekly Buzz Issue 2: January 30, 2015

PAGE 2

Buz z R obo t i c s : F IR ST T e am 17 5 Thank You A special thanks to all Family, Friends, Businesses who generously placed

an Ad in our Buzz Robotics Sponsor Guide.

Pioneer Spine and Sports Return to Work Advanced Alarm and Security Advanced Electrical CT Peerless Tool True Positions Elaine Smith Century 21 Johnson Memorial Hospital Tutor Doctor Gale Toyota Riley's School of Dance LuLu's Pizza Midas Auto Repair Shop Olive Oil Tap Room Robert Gange Orthodontics Pulver Precision LLC Miller Oil Hair Gallery at the Mill Joanne Vandal Photography H.A.R.P. Mechanical Astro's Pizza Olde Town Barber Molina's Café

Specialty Plumbing Gary Olko Plumbing Rollins Customize Auto Mercik & Bolduc Angela's Studio of Dance Residential Woodcraft Jane & Michelle's Hair Paul Manzi Photography Michell Lizee Cenntury 21 Joining Tech

CJ Custom Apparel Jo Ann Walk State Farm Hair Gallery at the Mill SECONNY Camp Nurse Townline Pizza

Villari's of Enfield Artioli Dodge CM Inspector Angelina's Restaurant Split Ends Vintage Carousek Boutique Pakulis Farm LLC

Country Diner Cathy's Nail Salon Peking Express

Andialg Photography

Arcouette Auto Center Enfield Scuba Integrity Martial Arts Guidance office Firestone Complete Auto Care Hair Matters Styling Salon Al's Carpet One Music Outlet Danny's Pizza Coranno's Revay's Garden and Gift Shop

Hazardville Motors Angelo’s Pizza Basement Cuts The Growth Company Tony's Unisex Haircutting Rinaldi's Ann's Pizza Enfield Motors Mike Manzi Art J Ryan Salon Hawthornes Agway Troiano Oil Co Scitico Barbershop Kim's Nails HPI Inspection Services

Towne House Styling Studio Northstar Wealth Partners Andiwalpuris Photography Plaza Excavation LLC Lil Buddy's Mini Mart

When frequenting these businesses,

please thank them for their support

Bedell Bros. Hot Rods & Cycles

Holy Family Parish

The Weekly Buzz Issue 2: January 30, 2015

PAGE 3

Thank YouRita Vose

Scott Kaupin Mesick, Bob & Anne

Grandpa Donovan Minnie and Grumpy DiBattista Leigh-An Boyer Kalagher Family Ed Deni Grandma & Grandpa Olko

Tom & Carol Mesick Donahue, Elaine Victoria Labarre Marie Caron George Vibberts Pat and Joe Depeau Allen & Rosanne Sylvester George & Barbara Bernier Jessica Duga Michelle Caron Bob Dowding Thomas Clark Jeff Thornton Ray Caron Pearce Family Santiago Family Judy Bocchino Sandra Brodeur

Mother Nature has not been kind to

Buzz this year. Due to snow days, we

had to cancel 4 out of our 45 build days.

Students work-ing on the

Drive Train

Students Working

on the Lathe

Working Away

Buz z R obo t i c s : F IR ST T e am 17 5 Student Experiences

The Weekly Buzz Issue 2: January 30, 2015

PAGE 4

Thomas Vose

This is my third year on Buzz Robotics. My time here has been so exciting, rewarding, suspenseful and it’s convinced me to follow an engineering ca-reer path. I wanted to learn a lot more about electrical and me-chanical engineering last year so I took a two week course at Worcester Polytechnic Institute called WPI Frontiers. It was the summer after my sophomore year that I realized this pro-gram was offered for incoming juniors and seniors. It was a per-fect opportunity to learn a bit more about the majors and mi-nors of engineering that were offered at WPI. I did not know what an engineering degree entailed at the time but I can tell you now that it is exactly what I would like to do for the rest of my life.

At WPI, students who were 11th and 12th graders stayed in dorms and lived the college life, going to classes and eating the same food every day for two weeks. It was totally worth it

though. Ken Stafford, the head mentor of WPI’s FIRST Robotics team 190 and the professor of the Robotics major, was also the professor of the two week program. He taught us so much about using unusual strategies to accomplish tasks that will get the at-tention of teams all around the world. We learned about calcu-lating torque, power, work, and acceleration of parts on previous Team 190 robots. Throughout the two weeks, the thirty students were split up into ten teams of three people. Then a game was released on the fourth day of the camp, giving us about ten days

to design, build, and test a robot that would perform to perfection. I learned so much about eve-ry aspect of the robots like planning, doing force calculations, physically working with tools and constructing the mechanical and electrical aspects, and programming also. With as much re-semblance to FIRST as possible, the competition at the end was exciting and made my heart pound. My team worked very hard throughout the two weeks and it paid off in the end. We trudged to victory with our robot named “Panzer”. We went undefeated and won an award from the staff at WPI.

This Frontiers program was a great life experience and I plan on going back this summer. I met so many nice people including kids from many other FIRST teams that I am still in touch with today. I have decided that I want to go into the engineering and robotic field due to the experiences Buzz and WPI have given me as a student in high school. WPI is my top choice to go to college and I know that if I am accepted, it will be thanks to Buzz for giving me the experience in robotics that I needed.

Buz z R obo t i c s : F IR ST T e am 17 5 A Few 20 Year Mentors

The Weekly Buzz Issue 2: January 30, 2015

PAGE 5

Mentors who have been involved with Buzz Robotics for 20 years

Bob

Art

Steve

Bob was the first member of Buzz Ro-botics. In 1995, he was approached by Ham-ilton to start a robotics team with FIRST Ro-botics Team. Bob contacted a friend at Fer-mi High School to see if they would be inter-ested in the program. Years later, the pro-gram is alive and well. Bob’s dream of a place where students can extend their knowledge of engineering has come true.

Art was brought to Buzz by Bob . The two of them worked at Hamilton, so Bob thought to ask Art to join him. Art took Bob up on the offer because he believed that stu-dents should be given a hands on experience with robots. He thought the program was worthwhile for students because of the hands on aspect.

As the Dept. Chair of Science at Fermi, Steve was introduced to the Buzz Robotics program by Bob. After 8 years of retirement from school, he continues his pursuit in the program. He believes that the program is something worthwhile because you get ex-periences you wouldn't get from a class room.

Buz z R obo t i c s : F IR ST T e am 17 5 Senior Profile

Name: Brian Toohey

High School: Enrico Fermi High School

Number of Years on Team: 4 years with FIRST

Why I Joined: I joined Buzz Robotics because when I was in eighth grade my brother was on the team. I got to see the New Hampshire regional competition and immediately I was hooked. I loved watching the games and it excited me to see that so many people were into science and technology like I was.

Favorite Part of First: My favorite part of FIRST is learning from all of our teams mentors. It's really amazing to have all these mentors from so many different places in the industry to teach us. It's a good way to get guidance when building the robot and sometimes they act as tutors for homework. I'm very happy that we have so many great mentors to work with.

Most Memorable Moment: My most memorable moment on the team is going to world championships in St. Louis last year. We got all the way to the Division Finals, and for a very exciting ten minutes it looked like we were going to Finals. Unfortunately for us, there was a penalty we picked up during the match that we didn't notice, and we had lost the match by only a few points. Still, this is one of the most memorable mo-ments of my life.

Future Plans: For the future, I'll be going into the game design field. It's something that I really enjoy and can definitely see myself doing it as a career. So far I have applied to Becker College, Champlain College, Al-bright College, Sacred Heart University, and Quinnipiac University.

The Weekly Buzz Issue 2:January 30, 2015

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The Weekly Buzz Issue 2:January 30, 2015

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Buz z R obo t i c s : F IR ST T e am 17 5 Senior Profile

Name: Kevin Huther

High School: Enrico Fermi High School

Number of years on team: 3

Why did you join: I have always loved working with my hands!

When I found out that there was a special group of people that

can incorporate hands on learning with thinking and reasoning

skills, I wanted to join. I think the whole experience of building

the robots from concept to finish and seeing it compete has been priceless. The dedication

and continued support from mentors has been a huge impact on my life. They are great role

models and continue to spark my interest in some type of Engineering Career in the future.

Favorite part of Buzz/First: The Mentors that are at Buzz are amazing. They have a wealth

of knowledge and love to help students. I really enjoyed my time discussing robotic ideas and

strategy with the mentors. In school, all we do is read for weeks on end. It can get pretty rou-

tine and uneventful. I get very excited about coming to Buzz, because every day is different.

We can try a new idea on the robot, build a proto type and see how it works. I feel I get a bet-

ter understanding of how things tick and the engineering behind it.

Most memorable moment in your time on buzz: That would have to be the build season. I

remember thinking that 6 weeks is a long time, what are we going to be doing after the 3rd

week? Well I was blown away! Time was flying by, seemed 6 weeks wouldn’t be long

enough, but we finished and crated the Robot. Even though we put in a lot of hours over the

course of 6 weeks, it still was a lot of fun. I made a lot of friends both on Buzz and other

teams we competed against. Going to Saint Louis and competing in the Championship was

definitely the highlight of the season.

Future plans: I plan to go to Asnuntuck Community College and then transfer into a 4 year

college to get my bachelors of science. I don’t know which field yet, but I do know that it

will have some type of engineering science.

The Weekly Buzz Issue 2: January 30, 2015

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Buz z R obo t i c s : F IR ST T e am 17 5 Student Thoughts Middle Of Build Season

During the first half of build season we have done a lot. I have worked on publisher so I can make these newsletters, make spacers for the drive train and brainstorm on con-cepts for the robot. Not a day at Buzz has been bor-ing, there is always some-thing happening at Buzz. I just cant wait until we fin-ish the robot and build sea-son ends.

Building With The Programmers.

By: Zack Boyer

From a programming point of view, we have made tremendous strides to-

wards completing our goals. Currently, we have two “breadboards” set up,

both equipped with the 2015 Control System. One of these systems is

mounted to the frame robot, which was configured from last years practice

robot and modified to test not only this years control system, but also our

2015 drive system. On our boards, we have basic drive configured and

ready to use along with pneumatic shifters for higher speed or higher

torque. We also have various Infer Red sensors for our elevator system to

detect whether or not there is a tote in front of it and, if there is, to stop

the elevator at that point. These sensors are also hooked up to various LED

lights to give the drivers a “heads up” as to what’s happening within the

robot. We also have a camera set up and enabled to provide the drivers

with a POV shot of the field from a robot’s perspective to, hopefully, allow

them to better maneuver the robot to pick up totes and barrels. Future

steps include writing autonomous functionality into the robot so that by

ship weekend, we’ll have a fully functional robot to compete with.

Alec Mason Build Season in the Beginning

This year the programming side of FRC team 175, Buzz Robotics, has been very busy. We have had to incorpo-rate many different sensors and electronics on this year’s bread board. A few examples are CAN bus, infrared sensors, and ultrasonic sensors.

CAN bus is a different method in which one can wire one or more jaguar motor controllers so that they can talk directly to each other. This allows for tighter control of the motors. However, this method is difficult to both wire and program.

Infrared sensors are another big thing that the software team has been working on. These sensors are planned to be used at each tote level. These six sensors are slightly unique in the sense that they require to be soldered to resisters and the fact that they have an irregular number of wires, three instead of the traditional four.

Another sensor we have recently hooked up is the ultrasonic sensor. This sensor uses ultrasonic waves to deter-mine the distance of an object. Our specific sensor is the type that sends back a voltage. This requires some calcula-tions on the code end for the computer to translate the voltage to a distance in inches.

Finally, the programming side of the software team has been busy as well. We have made it so that just by a click of a button, one can toggle on and off the lateral drive and we have programmed the limit switches so that they on-ly activate if both are pressed at the same time.

The Weekly Buzz Issue 2: January 30, 2015

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Buz z R obo t i c s : F IR ST T e am 17 5 3D Printer EKOCYCLE Cube 3D

FIRST® Robotics Competition and FIRST® Tech Challenge Teams registered for the 2015 season are invited to apply for one of the donated printers made available thanks to the generosity of 3D Systems and the Coca-Cola Company.

Awarded Teams will receive an EKOCYCLE™ Cube® Printer that uses a filament cartridge made with recycled material.

Thanks to our mentor Stu, who entered Buzz into this contest, we were one of the teams who won this amazing 3D Printer.

The Weekly Buzz

The Weekly Buzz Issue 2: January 30, 2015

PAGE 10

Buz z R obo t i c s : F IR ST T e am 17 5 Upcoming Fundraisers

Fundraiser

Pasta Supper Friday February 27, 2015

5-8pm

St. Bernard Church

426 Hazard Ave., Enfield, CT

Tickets available in advance and at the door.

$10 Adults, $8 Seniors and Children (10 and under)

The Weekly Buzz Issue 2: January 30, 2015

PAGE 11

Buz z R obo t i c s : F IR ST T e am 17 5 Upcoming Fundraisers

EASTER FLOWERS

Daffodils or Tulips, Assorted Colors

6” potted plant

ONLY $8

Per pot!

Ask your favorite Buzz Student for flowers!

Orders & payment due by: Thursday February 26th.

Assisted by

Hamden Greenhouse

Middletown, CT

Make Checks Payable to BUZZ Robotics