Twitter is not all bad 3/4/14

Google is a pretty cool place. I'm not the biggest fan of Twiter. In fact I typically avoid it like the plague, BUT this guy Derek Nichols tweeted a picture of his 14 year old brother, Jordan's, poem. Here it is:

Our generation will be known for nothing.

Never will anybody say,

We were the peak of mankind.

That is wrong, the truth is

Our generation was a failure.

Thinking that

We actually succeeded

Is a waste. And we know

Living only for money and power

Is the way to go.

Being loving, respectful, and kind

Is a dumb thing to do.

Forgetting about that time,

Will not be easy, but we will try.

Changing our world for the better

Is something we never did.

Giving up

Was how we handled our problems.

Working hard

Was a joke.

We knew that

People thought we couldn't come back

That might be true,

Unless we turn things around

(Read from bottom to top now)

Reading from bottom to top, the poem reads:

Unless we turn things around

That might be true,

People thought we couldn't come back

We knew that

Was a joke.

Working hard

Was how we handled our problems.

Giving up

Is something we never did.

Changing our world for the better

Will not be easy, but we will try.

Forgetting about that time,

Is a dumb thing to do.

Being loving, respectful, and kind

Is the way to go.

Living only for money and power

Is a waste. And we know

We actually succeeded

Thinking that

Our generation was a failure.

That is wrong, the truth is

We were the peak of mankind.

Never will anybody say,

Our generation will be known for nothing.

Life in stills 3/3/14 Pt.1

Hello and a good day to you! It's been three months and I haven't posted anything. I wish that "life got a in way" was always a good excuse but alas it is not. So what have I been up to in the last three months. Well life has gotten crazy for sure. Let's see if I can capture this in pictures in installments. Pt. 1 robotics:

In October we went at Toaster Tech FIRST Robotics Competition team 5332 to sell toast as a fundraiser and for networking for sponsors. At this point we were still trying to obtain sponsors for the upcoming season.

The game reveal happened and it turned out that we would be playing Aerial Assist that is played with a 2ft in diameter ball that passes to over robots on the same alliance, shoot into a high and/or low goal, catch balls, and shoot over a 6 foot tall truss that hangs over the middle of the field for points. 

So it turned out that we did get mentorship from the GT RoboJackets like we did in previous years despite the change of team status. We also share the shop this year with Westlake High School (also an Atlanta FRC team). This is my team's head mentor Jevawn.  He's pretty awesome and jokes around a lot but also is incredibly smart too. He gets very sad when power tools are used incorrectly!

Here are the two of the greatest guys I know. Casey is the one in the blue hoodie and Ben is the one in the corner with the duck face and alligator clips laced under his nose. They are quite the pair when they are together but also hilarious. This particular selfie was taken on the last weekend of build season at about 3am on Saturday. That weekend I was in the shop more than I was out of it. And the only times when I was out of it was when I left to sleep for a few hours only to return. The point of a sign in sheet was nonexistent. 

Part of robotics is using CAD (computer aided design) to dimension and design the robot before you begin to physically make it. This is a rendering of one of the final iterations of this year's robot. 

Here's it is... Toasti the robot. The guy on the computer on the right is Tyler one of the new mentors but super cool. He's kind of a all in a one. He knows how to program (His specialty. He's a computer science major at GT), CAD, mechanically design things, and knows FIRST well. 

At the end of the 6 weeks you are required to bag your robot and stop working on it. The caveat being because of all the weather that you'll see in later pictures prevented almost a weeks worth of work at the shop you are allowed a withholding allowance of 45lb worth of robot. To give some scope the max weight of a bot is 120lb. We bagged it February 18th at midnight (the deadline) just in time!