Weekly Meeting Minutes

Thursday, August 28, 2008

1st meeting...
MPV Engineering met this afternoon at 3:40 p.m., on the Mulberry High School campus. We began by discussing our travel plans for BEST kick off. We then proceeded to plan our BEST Boot Camp, which has been scheduled for September 6. The Crawford County Fair is to be held from September 6 th through September 13 th, we intend to use this event to gain publicity by entering a display into one of the fair’s competitions. We are making a presentation to our schools PTSO on September 9 th in hopes of receiving extra funding. Members discussed our possible approaches to the presentation. It was decided that Kenny and Marissa (presenters) would inform the PTSO about BEST, how we can use it, and how it best affects us. The meeting ended at 5:30 p.m. Our next meeting is to be held on September 2, 2008.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

MPV Engineering gathered at Mulberry High School this afternoon, at 3:40 p.m. We began by recapping our last meeting, and continuing our discussion on the fair display. Members brainstormed various assembling ideas for the PTSO presentation, and for the fair display. The meeting ended at 5:30 p.m. Our next meeting is to be held on September 4, 2008.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

MPV Engineering met at Mulberry High School this afternoon, at 3:40 p.m. Members worked on the fair display and the PTSO presentation. Both projects are running smoothly! Seth Whitlock designed an awesome flyer for member recruitment, which will be posted at the Mulberry Middle School, Mulberry Jr. High, and Mulberry High School; we can’t wait to see its results at future meetings! The meeting ended at 5:30 p.m.

Friday, September 5, 2008

MPV Engineering met at Mulberry High School this afternoon around 3:40 p.m. We continued working on our fair display, and PTSO presentation. The meeting ended at 5:30 p.m. Our next meeting is to be held on September 8, 2008.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Seth Whitlock took our display to the Crawford County Fair today. We are putting the finishing touches on our PTSO presentation.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

PTSO PRESENTATION DAY!!!!

Marissa and Kenny are presenting to the PTSO today, we trust that they will find our program beneficial to the school, and choose to give us funding. Seth’s poster did well, we had about 3 new members join, hopefully more will come! Members decided that it would be best to move our BEST boot camp to Friday, September 12, 2008. Mrs. Brown, one of our beloved sponsors, made an awesome flyer to advertise our boot camp, while Mr. and Mrs. Seward (beloved sponsors as well) helped us work out the little details necessary to conduct the camp. The meeting ended at 5:30 p.m.

Friday, September 12, 2008

BEST Boot Camp!!!!!

Our BEST Boot Camp began promptly at 3:30 p.m. on the Mulberry High School campus. We began with a brief BEST game description, followed by an overview of the planned activities. Mrs. Seward gave a presentation on “What is BEST?”, Seth Pigg gave a demonstration on “Building the Robot”, Mr. Seward gave a speech on “ The Engineering Process”, Kenny Quick gave a demonstration on “Solid Works/CAD, and Mrs. Seward finished with a speech about “Notebook”. After a five minute break, everyone returned and learned about Publicity from Marissa, fundraising, spirit and sportsmanship Mrs. Brown, table display and interview from Seth, and our awesome website www.EngineeringFreaks.com from Amanda. Members discussed setting team goals for BEST, and played games that tied in with BEST, and engineering (Build a balloon race car, and BEST Jeopardy). New members took an interest survey, which was followed by an awards ceremony. BEST Boot Camp ended at 6:30 p.m. Everyone is to meet at Mulberry High School tomorrow at 9:00 a.m., for BEST kickoff!!!!!

Saturday, September 13, 2008

BEST Kickoff!!!

Everyone met at Mulberry High School this morning, and we left for the Stubblefield center at 9:00 a.m. Members were very excited! We arrived at the Stubblefield center and were briefed on this years game, and received our materials for the robot. Members brainstormed all the way home, discussing ideas for the robot, and booth. We immediately knew this was going to be a great year. After arriving back at MHS, members began drawing out their ideas for the robot, and finally settled on three robot ideas.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Today turned out to be very productive. Bao Xiong, Seth Whitlock, and Mckale discussed spirit items to order from orientaltrading.com. Our booth design is progressing very nicely; Seth Whitlock is head of the design process and is doing a splendid job. Steven and Corbit worked on the design for the front wheel steering mechanism. The group has finalized the three robot choices and has begun a rating chart for the selection process. We plan on choosing our robot at the next meeting.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

A robot has been chosen (cheers). They drew a design matrix on the board. Each robot was scored on various attributes. We took a picture of it to add to the notebook. Each attribute was deliberated and scored and the group decided that the forklift robot was the best choice. Once this was decided the team got to work trying to better the design.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

The robotics team began attaching the servo to a U bracket. (need more notes from Robot Team Leader)

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Our team began working on the front wheels. (need more notes from Robot Team Leader.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

The MPV Engineering team met at Mulberry High School this morning at 10:00.

Seth Whitlock began by deciding on our booths dimensions (with the help of Mr. Pigg, Mrs. Seward, and Mrs. Brown. He proceeded to work on our T-Shirt design and logo. He seems to be going for an earth friendly theme this year.

Mr. Seward, Kenny Quick, Seth Pigg, Mr. Pigg, and Justin Corbit worked on getting our robot to roll, and building a base. The team cut out a 12” by 18” piece of plywood. They proceeded to draw a graph on the plywood that had blocks .25” from the side and .5” apart, and drilled a hole at every intersection. This will allow our robot to be adjustable. 1.2” by 0.4” holes were cut on each side of the robot for the servos to be attached for our front wheels. The holes for the servo are 2.1” from the front of the robot.

Monday, September 22, 2008

The MPV Engineering team gathered at Mulberry High School this afternoon at 3:10 p.m. Our booth and design team began working on our t-shirt design today, they’ve decided on an earthy theme.

The robotics team redid our yoke, and cut/assembled holes for the yoke (on the robots base). They proceeded to hook up the servos and gave them a “test run”. Their turning capabilities were almost flawless.

Our webmaster (Amanda) is updating the pictures on our website.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

The MPV Engineering team met today, at 3:10 at Mulberry High School. Our Jr. Engineers were with us today, they learned how to use the Engineering Process hands-on by designing and building some balloon cars of their own.

The robotics team worked on our robots wheels today. They made the screws in the big heels smaller, mounted the motors to the base, attached the wheels to the motors and proceeded to find a rather annoying problem. One wheel didn’t even touch the ground (PROBLEM). We tested the robot out by driving it up and down the halls.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

The MPV Engineering team met today, at 3:10 at headquarters. The robotics team made a backboard (6” by 17”) and a wooden brace that is 9” by 9”; these will support our robots arm. By the end of the meeting they had a .5” board with ¾” holes from the top of the board, and .5” holes all the way down the board. They drilled holes and screwed the screws in the board so that the backboard would be steady. Finally, they made a 9” by 9” triangular brace with holes so it would brace the backboard.

Our design team is putting the finishing touches on our logo. Our webmaster, the mighty Amanda, is putting up some new videos that the robot team has made..

Thursday, September 25, 2008

The MPV Engineering team met today, at 3:10. The robotics team is now working on our robot arm! They took four 28” PVC pipes and put them in ½” rectangles with metal rods through them to hold up our arm on the backboard.

The design team is toiling over our t-shirt design. They are making great progress, as the logo is finished. The website is coming right along; Amanda has been uploading new pictures and videos.

Friday, September 26, 2008

The MPV Engineering team met today at 3:10. The robotics team cut a U shape out of the base of our robot. They attached a servo mount at the end of the arm, and mounted the small motor, as well as the brain, drill wire holes, pull up bar, battery, pulley and hinging forks. (MORE INFO FROM BOOTH AND WEBSITE)

Saturday, September 27, 2008

The MPV Engineering team met today at 10:00 a.m. The robotics team began by trying to make the arm work. They made 4 pulleys out of PVC and wood to ease the tension. They will be using two small motors to pull the arm up and down. (MORE INFO FROM ROBOTICS

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

The MPV Engineering team gathered at headquarters today at 3:10 p.m. Our lovely team of engineers assembled our robot today. The robot maneuvered properly, and the arm moved up and down with no problems. We tested its ability to hold up 5 lbs., and found that it did so easily.

Our T-shirt design is progressing very nicely, and is expected to be done soon. The website is also doing well and is mostly updated. The design of the booth is still being discussed.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

The MPV Engineering Efficiency Experts met today at 3:10 p.m. The robotics team began by making the robots lifts out of rods. They proceeded to make hinges and drilled a hole in the face of the robot. They practiced to see how it worked, and decided to keep the design. They plan to attach the piano wire servo next. Kenny is hard at work on his CADD drawings.

The booth design has been decided on, now the Design team (Seth Whitlock) is discussing how to go about building the booth with one of our sponsors, Mr. Seward.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

We met today at 10:00 a.m. The robotics and design team began shooting our promotional video “Kenny and Jeph”. They were able to get a little footage, but were forced to quit after Mother Nature bestowed rain so generously upon us. Our webmaster, Amanda, edited the footage.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Seth Whitlock, Brianna Freeman, Mr. Seward, and Mrs. Seward met at headquarters today (3:10, as usual). Seth Whitlock is putting the finishing touches on our T-shirt, it will definitely be done by the end of the week! Our team is planning on traveling to Mountainburg tomorrow to help them with all areas of the BEST competition. (it is their first year)

Tuesday, October 7, 208

A few members of our team (Seth Whitlock, Brianna Freeman, Kenny Quick and Justin Corbit) traveled to Mountainburg with our sponsors Mr. and Mrs. Seward, and our mentor Mr. Pigg to aide Mountainburg’s engineering team. It is Mountainburg’s first year in the competition, so we decided to give them a hand. Our members split up into our specialty groups, to help better their team leaders (Notebook, Booth, Robot, Spirit) knowledge of how to go about competing in BEST. Seth Whitlock covered booth, and spirit, Brianna Freeman covered notebook, and Justin Corbit and Kenny Quick covered the ins and outs of the robot. Our two teams exchanged ideas and information. By the end of the meeting both teams felt very good about the competition. We are happy to have a new ally in this year’s competition!

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Today our robotics team put the piano wire on our robot by connecting it to the servo on the robot’s front. This created a pincher. The team proceeded to finish our programming by setting cheat code values. (NEEEEEEED MORE INFO)

Friday, October 10, 2008

The MPV Engineering team met at 3:10 this afternoon. The T-shirt design is finished and on its way to the printer!!!! Seth Whitlock sat down with Mr. and Mrs. Seward to finalize a materials list for the booth. Seth plans on having 3 columns built.