During Week 5, the team has been working very hard to finish the robot on time. Since we lost three days last week, everyone is chipping in as much as they can to help make up the time we lost.
Our programmers have been pretty productive this week. Although they can’t program the robot quite yet, they programmed the LED lights so the robot will be able to track the alignment lines on the field. They also finished programming all of the controls on the Xbox controllers that the drive team uses to control all of the robots functions.
The build team, which is led by Ian and Jeremy, continued to work on our robot. The pneumatic cylinders that will help us climb and descend the different stages in the habitat zone have been attached to the robot, along with the wheels. We have come up with a great way to collect and score the hatches and cargo, and have started to finish the final details. The CAD team worked on redesigning a few of the smaller components of the robot and are super close to finishing the final drawing.
Mary and Katie have finished and submitted the Chairman’s essay and short answer questions, along with the Deans List and Woodie Flowers presentations. This year we got our idea for Chairman’s from a dream Katie had, and we are very excited to present it this year at the competitions. 
Mrs. Vasko has been working on the bumpers for most of the week, and as she says, “The bumpers are the most important part.”
Our team currently doesn’t have a name for our robot, but we have started to brainstorm some great ideas!
In Week 4, the Warlocks only had a few days to work because the Polar Vortex hit the Eastern Coast causing us to miss 3 days of school. During the few days this week that we did have to work, the build team put together some transmissions and planned to continue working on putting together the robot. The Polar Vortex did set us back a few days; however, we will be staying late for the rest of the build season so we can catch up and get our robot done on time.
On Saturday at the beginning of Week 4, the Warlocks began training the scouts for the competition season. As always, the scouts watched a PowerPoint presentation and then took a test to demonstrate that they understood the PowerPoint and the purpose of scouting. In the coming weeks, the scouts will take another test that is geared toward more game-related information. Scouts will then use this information during the competition season to track all the robots on the field.
The Warlocks officially finalized their robot design in Week 3! We have kept on schedule this far in the season by beginning to build our robot, beginning with the base. A few of the students are learning how to rivet the base and then they will return to continue working on the rest of the robot. Each subteam has been working hard to make sure that we will make the deadline.
This week we are highlighting the build team. The build team, led by Jeremy and Ian, has been prototyping and now that the base has arrived, they have begun to build our competition robot! Since build season is about halfway over, the build team is beginning to stay late into the night to ensure our robot will be ready on time.
In Week 2, the Warlocks have continued prototyping and have continued to finalize design plans. Mentors and students have been working together well to ensure that our robot will be the best robot we can make. Any questions that any student or mentor has, are answered quickly so that the build process can continue.
In the coming weeks, the team will be moving towards a final robot to pass off to the programmers. Once the robot is completed, the programmers work to get all the code loaded onto the robot and to have it running smoothly. We hope that this year our robot will do even better than OTIS did last year.
This week we are highlighting the CAD team. This week the CAD team, led by Tyler and Katie, has been working on the design plans so they can pass the drawings off to the build team. Throughout the week students and mentors have come to them for dimensions for parts of the robot and the CAD team has been making sure to get them accurate dimensions while continuing to finish the robot design.
The Warlocks have been working hard during Week 1 to decide what functions we want our robot to have. Our build team has also been busy in the shop building prototypes to help make these decisions. After the prototypes were shown to the team, we began to formulate ways to incorporate them into our robot plans. As the build season continues into Week 2, the CAD team will work to have the drawings completed so they can pass off design plans to the build team. Every day we get closer and closer to having our 2019 competition robot completed. 
Starting in Week 2 and continuing throughout the build season, the Warlocks will be highlighting a new sub-team and its members. Every week’s update will highlight a different team until the end of build season, when we will talk about our adventures through the build season as we prepare to compete in the Finger Lakes Regional and the Buckeye Regional.
We look forward to the next 5 weeks of build season and the competition that we will face at our regionals. We wish all teams the best of luck as they begin to build their robots for the season. We’ll see you all at the competitions!
On Saturday, the Warlocks kicked off the 2019 season with the game Destination: Deep Space. Missed the kickoff? Watch the game animation here!
We’re excited to begin brainstorming ideas for our newest robot! During the kickoff event, the team was broken up into smaller groups and we went through a variety of scenarios, such as the Dream Team, Win in Auto, and Play the Game, to determine the best functions for our robot. Each group had time to work out the scenario specific to their group and then they reported back to the rest of the group. At the end of the day, the team gathered in the gym to watch a group of students “play” the game.
On Sunday, the team met at MAHLE to continue brainstorming ideas. By the end of the meeting, we determined what functions we believe are absolutely necessary to make our robot function smoothly.
As Week 1 begins, the students will continue brainstorming until we figure out the design we are going to pursue. Check back in on this section of the website during the season to see how the team progresses through build season and competitions.
I found a series of photos taken of our 2014 team. We usually take two or three shots, but for some reason, there was a long sequence. I thought an animation was in order!
On February 20, 2017, the Warlocks held their annual “Media Day” to reveal our 2018 competition robot at Lockport High School. A journalist from the Lockport Union Sun and Journal was invited to come watch our robot live and in person. A reporter from Channel 7 also came, watched our robot, and interviewed one of our seniors, Emma, that was aired on TV later that night.
The Warlocks demonstrated the abilities of our robot, which included: our multiple autonomous codes, collector, our ability to place cubes on both the switch and the scale, as well as the climber on our robot. The Warlocks are very pleased with how our robot, OTIS, turned out and can’t wait to head to competition.
During week five, our build team and programming team worked side-by-side to simultaneously fix and program the robot. In the middle of week five, we began to set up our half field in our school’s cafeteria. There we began to perfect all of our autonomous code and work with our drive team and pit crew.
In week six, the team completed all awards, finished building and programming our robot, OTIS, and even had time to scrimmage at Penfield High School, the home of FIRST Team 1511, Rolling Thunder. We were joined by several teams from around Western New York and had a great time on Sunday. We played well at Penfield and are excited to see what this season will hold for us. Our students are hard at work today making spare parts, and practicing for our FIRST Chairman’s Award. On Tuesday, the Warlocks held our annual “Media Day” where we were joined by a journalist from the Lockport Union Sun and Journal, as well as a member from Channel 7. The footage that Channel 7 took was then aired on the news that night. Throughout the season, the Warlocks have worked hard to design, build, and program our robot, OTIS, within th
e allotted time.
We wish all teams god luck as they begin their competitions in the near future! We can’t wait to see everyone when we head to the Finger Lakes Regional (March 15-17) and the Buckeye Regional (March 28-31). Thank you to all parents, mentors, and teachers that helped us to reach our full potential during the season. We appreciate all those who pushed us to stay on track and finish on time. We especially would like to thank all the parents that helped to provide us with food to fuel us, because after all, what robotics team doesn’t love a good team dinner?
In week four, the Warlocks continued building our 2018 robot named OTIS!
Working together, the programming team has learned programming through the help of professional programmers Kris Sielski of Sensorcon, Ken Handley of New York Power Authority, and Tim Brounscheidel of GM Powertrain. Students Andrew P., Faith O., Jared M., Cory M., Ben L., and Kyle P. went to MAHLE over the past 6 months to learn a program called C++. This program has been implemented into our 2018 robot and has been extremely successful.
The progress that our students and mentors have been making has resulted in a robot that is currently able to autonomously move, stop, turn, and it has the ability to come within 1/64th of an inch of the designated stop. Our hats come off for how far our students have come over the last 6 months in programming.
“As, the president of Lockport Robotics Inc., I feel confident that our robot, OTIS, will be a well-programmed and a well-built machine at our 2018 FIRST competitions.”
-Jim Rogowski, President of Lockport Robotics Inc.