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ÆROS MEETINGS JOURNAL 2008-2009
  • Thursday, September 4th, 2008: NBHS Robotics 2008-2009.
    Meet this year´s Captains! Dylan Yott & Lien La. This meeting was a brief introduction to NBHS´ Robotics Team. Returning members discussed last year´s, "MarsFX" team and their experience in Connecticut´s BEST and South´s BEST. We discussed Saturday´s Kick-Off Day held at CCSU.

  • Saturday, September 6th, 2008: KICK-OFF DAY at CCSU!
    Members went to the kick-off at Central Connecticut State University. They split up into different individual workshops and received the materials for 2008´s Just Plane Crazy.

  • Monday, September 8th, 2008: First Official Team Meeting.
    Once again, we discussed last year´s successful experience to the new members. The members who attended the Kick-Off Day at CCSU informed the rest of the team of the theme and basic rules. The captains discussed judging categories and important factors about the competition. We broke into subgroups.
    • Robot Design & Build Team - in charge of the design & construction of the robot and inventory on materials.
    • Electrical & Programming Team - handles the wiring of the robot and understanding BRAIN.
    • Notebook/Research Team - in charge of creating the notebook, research paper, documenting every meeting, and taking photos.
    • Presentation Team - 5 selected members for the oral presentation.
    • Table Display & Team Spirit - in charge of the display table, making posters, creating logos, and all other creative things.
    • Fundraising & Marketing - in charge of organizing fundraisers and publicizing our team to the rest of the school and community.
    • Website/ Webmasters - in charge of updating our website.
    The design & build team began taking inventory on the materials in the box from Kick-Off Day and the Table Display team brainstormed ideas for the "table".

  • Tuesday, September 9th, 2008: ÆROS: "Driven by ÆROdynamicS."
    All the members brainstormed for the team name and then voted on a final one- ÆROS (Advanced Ergonomic Robot Operated Systems) & the motto was "Driven by ÆROdynamicS." The members broke up into their subgroups. The robot design & build team looked over the detailed rules and brainstormed ideas for the robot. The Table Display team continued to brainstorm ideas as well. The webmasters began to design the website layout.

  • Thursday, September 11th, 2008: Introducing the "Pow-Wow Circle".
    With so many new faces and new members, the captains decided it was time to create the "Pow-Wow Circle". The meeting started off with every member getting into a big circle. Starting with the captains, each person would say their name, their favorite candy, reasons for joining the club…etc. It was a great team building activity to get familiar with each other. Then, everyone gathered all the logo sketches and discussed the good and bad qualities of each logo. In the end, we realized that we weren´t ready to pick a logo yet. The Table Display team continued to brainstorm and began designing the table. The Robot Design & Build team discussed possible ideas and features that would be most beneficial to the playing field and objective.

  • Monday, September 15th, 2008:
    The meeting started out with another "Pow-Wow Circle". The team as a whole voted on a logo. A few members began to sketch t-shirt sketches while everyone else split up into their subgroups. The Spirit & Fundraising team joined together to begin brainstorming ideas for "give-away" gifts to the other teams at the competition. The webmasters compared the layouts they created and took pieces from each to create a final layout. The Design & Build Team and the Electrical Team assembled the plane.

  • Tuesday, September 16th, 2008: The Importance of Teamwork.
    We started the meeting off with a team Pow-Wow Circle. The captains explained the importance of being a team; a family, the importance of organization, communication, and reminded everyone to document all their ideas. Once we split into subgroups, it was clear that the circle discussion had worked. Things were getting done as a team. The Table Display team discussed rules and ideas for their table display. The Design & Build Team continued to brainstorm different features to the robot. The Electrical team looked at the batteries and tried to figure out where to connect the wires. the Table display team and the Robot Design & Build team brainstorming

  • Thursday, September 18th, 2008: Just One Month until Game Day!
    The design and build team continued to brainstorm and discussed the best possible and the most efficient features. The Fundraising team thought of other ways to get money. The Table Display team started to make sketches of the plane construction idea on AUTOCADD. The notebook team begins researching for the research paper.

  • Monday, September 22nd, 2008: Table Display´s Revision Day.
    The Table Display team had a subgroup Pow-Wow Circle, decided that the original plan for the table display was too unrealistic for the time left, and started a completely new design. The Electrical team looked over the programming environment and soldered some attachments to a wire extender to make the battery connectable to the charger. The Design & Build team went through preparations for building. The executives decided that we should get polo shirts for the competition because it looks more professional. The Table Display team has a "Pow-Wow Circle" and decides to start over.

  • Tuesday September 23rd, 2008: Let´s work together, yeah, yeah, yeah.
    The Table Display team makes a revision of the needed materials. The Build team went over different designs for the arm mechanism and looked over the materials they had to work with. We began collecting money for the polo shirts. The captains wrote a letter to the high school´s travelling band, Tropical Storm, inviting them to the competition.

  • Thursday, September 25th, 2008: The Robot Design and Build team began building prototypes, seeing what would work the best, and continued to brainstorm on the final designs. The table display continued to go over their new design.

  • Monday, September 29th, 2008: NBHS´ BEST talks to HALS´ BEST.
    Returning members went to talk to another BEST team, HALS Middle School, New Britain, CT. They discussed last year´s experience and went over this year´s game in detail, giving a few tips. The Table Display team went to ACMoore´s to buy supplies and "give-away" items for the other teams.

  • Tuesday, September 30th, 2008:
    The Design and Build team begins building the actual robot’s body and mobility. The Table Display team continues to work on finalizing the on the design for the table display. The Spirit team begins to make posters.

  • Thursday, October 2nd, 2008: Team Polo Shirts Ordered.
    We finished collecting all the money needed for the polo shirts and placed in an order for them. The Design and Build team continued to build the base of the robot. The notebook team looked over last year´s engineering notebook and research paper and began to outline this year´s notebook. The Table Display team puts together all the materials they have to start the table display and the "give-aways"/care packages. The Fundraising team planned to make a pamphlet for teacher donations and wrote a proposal to organize a possible robotics fundraiser for students during lunch waves. The Spirit team continued to make posters.

  • Friday, October 3rd, 2008: Fantastic Football Fundraiser.
    Members of the team went to our high school´s football game against Weaver High School, from Hartford, CT. We brought last year´s robot and also our solar car we built in the spring of this year. We stood in front of the stadium entrance and collected over 100 dollars in donations.

  • Saturday, October 4th, 2008: Get Greener 08!
    Our school held "GET GREENER 08", which was a school social event to help the environment. Our team brought our Solar Car that we competed in the Dell-Winston Solar Car Challenge in Dallas, Texas this last summer and advertised our competition at CCSU on Oct. 19th.

  • Monday, October 6th, 2008:
    The Table Display and everyone else that didn´t have anything to do began assembling the care-packages to the other teams. The spirit team continued to make the posters. The Design and Build team continues to build the body of the robot. The presentation team starts making the power-point for the oral presentation. The webmasters continue working on updating the website. We also made business cards for our company team.

  • Tuesday, October 7th, 2008: Time´s Winding Down.
    The Table Display team sketched on the tri-fold boards they are going to use for the competition and continued to work on the care-packages/give-aways for the other teams. The Spirit team continued to make posters for the competition. The Build team continued building the robot. They took the wheel from last year´s robot and created a better model for this year´s wheels. The Electrical team worked on the controllers and adjusted the wires. The Presentation team continued to work on the power-point. The Notebook team finished the research paper draft and started putting everything together.

  • Thursday, October 9th, 2008: Who cares? ÆROS cares!
    The Table Display team finished making the care-packages. In each give-away, we gave a glue stick, a Band-Aid, Play-Doh, a Sharpie permanent marker, bubbles, our business card, and a card signed by members of our team. The Notebook team continued assembling the engineering notebook. The Spirit team made put posters & flyers up around the school.

  • Friday, October 10th, 2008: Branches of Unity Ceremony.
    Captains Lien and Dylan represented the team at the annual Branches of Unity Ceremony in our school´s lecture hall, commemorating the attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the Unity tree we planted one month after the attack. The polo shirts are finished and picked up.

  • Monday, October 13th, 2008: Happy Columbus Day!
    There was no meeting due to Columbus Day (no school). The Notebook team continued to assemble the engineering notebook for Tuesday´s deadline. The webmasters finish up their final touches on the website.

  • Tuesday, October 14th, 2008: Single-digit days left until Game Day!
    The polo shirts are brought in and a team picture is taken for the engineering notebook cover. The team plans to have a meeting everyday until the competition to be fully prepared. The website is finished and the webmasters give the layouts to our school website´s primary webmaster. The design & build team continues to build the robot. The engineering notebook is finished and is delivered to CCSU for the deadline.