The website team is hard at work on the new Ravonics website. The new website is still in beta stages but we would like to invite you to preview our new site. This new website implements php and mysql for using a new dynamic database system in order to simplify the updating process. At this time we do not have a scheduled release date, please check back soon for more updates to the new website. To look at the site please click the link below.
http://www.ravonics.net/2008
Hey everyone! Greetings from Ravonics Revolution Team 1710. We are all very excited that robotics season is underway. The team has been hard at work since the beginning of the school year making preparations for this season. Now that build season is underway, the team is working exceedingly harder than ever.
The Operations Team is well underway with our robot. Our chassis and drive system are designed and our final frame has already been assembled. Programming is working very hard to program our complicated swerve drive, which is a new asset that our robot will have this year. The electrical group has finished a working electrical board that we will use as we continue to build our robot. As in past years, the CAD team is working very hard at this time to model our designs and create virtual prototypes before we ever build anything. After Week 1, we are on schedule and our robot is progressing nicely.
When not working on the Operations Team, students remain productive working on other team tasks. We have cultivated several sponsorships, and we are still working very hard to raise funds for the year. We have also organized a food drive in our community with the assistance of our school’s KAY club and the U.S. Army. Our creative team has completed a great safety animation for kick-off and is working on another animation about an invention that helps the environment and our community. In addition, our new website is almost complete, so make sure that you continue to visit our site in the future.
On behalf on the team, I would like to thank all of our coaches, mentors, and anyone else who has supported us in our endeavors. We are lucky enough to have a dozen business mentors assisting us in several capacities. There is no way that we would be able to do this without your continued support. We are once again on our way to a very successful season!
Jerad Bickford
Team 1710 CEO
This is our 2007 post-Chicago, pre-Atlanta, promotional video. This video basicly sums up our program and was used to gain support in rasing money for our trip to Atlanta. Enjoy!
We are so excited to announce that we have returned from Chicago victorious! We were selected by 7th seed Team 111 Wildstang in the first round of alliance selections for the elimination rounds Saturday afternoon. The alliance of teams 111, 1710, and team 904 made it through the elimination rounds undefeated. After playing two games to a tie in the best-of-three finals, our robot broke a servo and was replaced by team 1850. Two more games was all it took for teams 111, 904, and 1850 to finish what we helped start. With the gracious support of our amazing alliance partners, we brought home a 2007 Midwest Regional Champion trophy, and were invited to the FIRST Championships in Atlanta, GA.
Team 1710 was also awarded the following:
- Safety Star of the Day for March 15
- Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Entrepreneurship Award
- Underwriters Laboratory Industrial Safety Award
- Website Design Award
We have tons of video and photos from our trip to Chicago. We're still hard at work editing all of it down, but we'll get everything up as soon as we can -- for now, here's a little tease of the video Mr. Jeff Byers shot for us as our robot racked and rolled in Chicago last weekend.
Click a link to watch the movie teaser:
Our entry for the 2007 Autodesk Inventor award is now finished and has been submitted for peer review. Team members Bill Reimer and Chris Kenison spent many long hours designing drawings in Autodesk Inventor 11 professional. If you would like to learn more about their efforts click here.
One of our own students, James Graff, has been awarded a $26,000 scholarship from College for Creative Studies in Detroit Michigan. We are very proud to have our first scholarship offered on our Ravonics team! Good luck James and congrats!
The Bowl-a-thon occurred Saturday helping a lot of members get a second chance to raise money for travel expenses to Chicago. Thanks to the help of parents and the community we made our second fundraiser a major success.
We have received notice from FIRST that our robot has been received at about 2:40 yesterday afternoon and is currently sitting in a warehouse in Chicago. We are very proud with how the robot has turned out and would like to thank everyone for their support these last 6 weeks. See you in Chicago!
Our robot is complete and shipped on Monday, February 18.
Check out these cool videos of our robot at work:
- Robot picking up and racking a tube
(18mb QuickTime) - Robot removing a tube from the rack
(7mb QuickTime)
Our entry for the 2007 Autodesk Visualization award is finished and has been submitted for peer review. Team members James Graff and Kyle Rickert spent many long hours composing a story, making storyboards, modeling, rigging, animating, and lighting the environment for the finished animation.
This year's theme is "Thinking Green." Our animation tells a story of an older model robot who meets a younger robot with a penchant for energy efficiency. Can you teach an old robot new tricks? We definitely think so! Check it out below!
- Click here to download the movie (146mb quicktime .mov file)
- Click here to download our storyboard (1.2mb Adobe PDF file)
The Robotics team has held one of three scheduled fundraising nights at the Mr. Goodcents at Ridgeview and K-10. We helped Mr. Goodcents achieve a record breaking sales day, and we hope to re-break this record at the next fundraising date. We helped them collect $700 in 4 hours on January 16th, and by the next fundraiser, we hope to help them reach $1,000. The team gets ten percent of whatever Mr. Goodcents raises, however much more importantly, we have established an affiliation, and an outlet to show off what we’ve learned and produced to our community. We would appreciate your support on our next fundraising date, February 15th from 4-8pm, and this event will include an appearance by KC Chiefs’ kicker Lawrence Tynes, and our fully operational robot.