Fast Lane is behind us. Everything below works forward from the first meeting after fall break to three qualifiers: Roadrunner on November 14, Saguaro Blossom on January 23 and Copper on February 6.
The strategy is deliberately unromantic: build something that scores first, then design something better while it is already competing.
| Qualifier | Date | What we bring |
|---|---|---|
| Roadrunner Gilbert Christian School, Gilbert | Sat Nov 14 | Mk-1 — the REV DUO Starter Bot superstructure built to REV’s guide, mounted on our mecanum chassis. The goal is a robot that scores, on time — not a clever one. |
| Saguaro Blossom Microchip, Chandler | Sat Jan 23 | Mk-2 — our own design, prototyped in parallel from October and built over the winter on what Roadrunner taught us. |
| Copper American Leadership Academy, Queen Creek | Sat Feb 6 | Mk-2 refined — two weeks to fix whatever January exposed. No new mechanisms this late. |
Why the Starter Bot first. A rookie team that spends October designing has nothing to drive in November. A rookie team that builds REV’s robot in October has a scoring machine, a season of match data, and a very well-informed opinion about what to design next. Half the team builds Mk-1; the other half prototypes Mk-2 from the first meeting back.
Neither is optional, and both fail quietly if they are left to the first meeting back.
1. The Expansion Hub. A Control Hub has four motor ports. Mecanum uses all four. The Starter Bot’s intake and flywheel are motors five and six, so Mk-1 needs an Expansion Hub and a second Control Hub will not substitute. We own one from last season, marked as flaky. BA-17 now tests it before it is trusted: update its firmware in the REV Hardware Client first — stale firmware is the usual cause — then run every port and wiggle every cable under load. We only need two good ports, so one dead port is survivable; a hub that drops the whole link is not. If it drops even once, a replacement (REV-31-1153, about $275) has to be ordered, and the old one becomes the bench spare.
2. Inventory the parts library against the bill of materials. We have the parts from an earlier season’s Starter Kit V3.1 plus the team’s own library, so most of the superstructure should already be on the shelf. What is worth checking early, because it is consumable and easy to be short of: 15mm extrusion (the guide eats 420mm x9 and 225mm x5), polycarbonate sheet (REV-41-7537), 8 intake flaps, 4x 90mm grip wheels and 4x 1in soft grip wheels, 4x 90T and 1x 60T gears, #25 chain and sprockets, 2x Smart Robot Servo V2, a Core Hex motor, one spare UltraPlanetary + HD Hex for the flywheel, and M3 hardware in bulk — the guide pre-loads 195 screws and 195 nyloc nuts before step one. BA-11 is that inventory, and it is the first card back from break for a reason: anything short has to be ordered that same day.
Five weeks back from break, two meetings each. The scheduling fact that makes it fit: four of the five Starter Bot assemblies are bench work — launcher floor, intake, flywheel and feeder, and pollen pusher all get built off the robot, so four crews can build them at once. Steps marked ▶ critical cannot slip.
| Week | Mk-1 — the robot that competes | Mk-2 & media — runs alongside |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Oct 13, 16 |
▶ BA-11 Parts check & cut list — everything waits on this. Then BA-12, BA-13, BA-14, BA-15 start in parallel on the bench. | CD-9 Fit the Starter Bot to our chassis in CAD — week one, because the build crew needs its numbers. MF-2/MF-3 sponsor letters. EP-13 build the field elements the day the kit lands — a Friday card. |
| 2 Oct 20, 23 |
Finish the four subassemblies. ▶ BA-16 Mount them on the mecanum chassis — the part REV has no guide for. | CD-3/CD-4 intake and outtake concepts, BA-7 cardboard prototype, EP-11 portfolio started. |
| 3 Oct 27, 30 |
▶ BA-17 Expansion Hub → PR-18 Configuration → PR-19 Starter Bot TeleOp on mecanum. It drives and shoots by Oct 30. | CD-6/CD-7 printed parts, MG-2/MG-3 give-aways for the event, TS-5 press the shirts. |
| 4 Nov 3, 6 |
PR-20 Flywheel tuning, PR-21 Autonomous, EP-9 Drive team practice. Most of the points live in this week. | EP-11 portfolio submitted, EP-8 scouting sheet built and tested on match video. |
| 5 Nov 10, 13 |
▶ BA-18 Inspection dry run — a week early, on purpose. Then drive practice only. No new mechanisms. | EP-10 Pit setup & run sheet, pack the tote, rehearse the judging interview. |
If you fall behind. The one date that cannot move is BA-16 finished by Oct 23. Everything after it is programming and practice, and programming compresses; building does not. If week two slips, drop the pollen pusher (BA-15) — the robot scores without it. If week three slips, go to Roadrunner with TeleOp and no autonomous. A robot that drives and shoots badly beats a robot that stays in the pit.
Roughly fourteen meetings separate Roadrunner from Saguaro Blossom, minus Thanksgiving and winter break. That is enough to design and build one good mechanism. It is not enough to build three.
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| First meeting back after Nov 14 | ▶ EP-12 Post-event debrief, while everyone still remembers. It turns thirty robots watched and five matches played into a ranked list of what Mk-2 must fix. Nothing gets designed before this card is done. |
| Late Nov – Dec | Design and prototype the top item on that list: CD-3, CD-4, CD-5, CD-7 in CAD; BA-5 and BA-7 on the bench. Mk-1 stays assembled and drivable the whole time — the drive team keeps practising on it. |
| Early Jan | Build and integrate. PR-15, PR-16, PR-17 bring the Pinpoint odometry and Pedro Pathing into autonomous — that is the single biggest points upgrade available to us. Re-run BA-18 inspection on the changed robot. |
| Jan 23 → Feb 6 | Four meetings between the second and third qualifier. Fix, tune and practise only. Run EP-12 again the first meeting after Saguaro Blossom. |
Every card is tagged with the hardware it needs. That tag is what decides how many crews can work at once — and it is why the Starter Bot fits into ten meetings at all.
| Tag | Cards | What it means for planning |
|---|---|---|
| No hardware | 46 | Runs anywhere, any number of crews at once. Planning, all nine CAD cards, merch, shirts, marketing, PR-9 (simulator), BA-1/BA-6 — and the four Starter Bot bench subassemblies, BA-12 to BA-15. |
| Programming board | 4 | Needs the 3D-printed dev board. PR-10, PR-11 and PR-12 teach touch, colour and potentiometer — none of which exist on the drivetrain kit. |
| Board or robot | 3 | Either works. Run these on the board while the build crew still has the robot apart. |
| Robot / Robot + field | 26 | The scarce resource — one crew at a time, unless the Herobotix class robot is present and has its own hub. |
Hub accounting. The team has two Control Hubs: one lives on the programming board, one is on the student robot. That covers both tracks and neither ever gets unbolted to run a meeting. The Expansion Hub above is a third board, not a replacement for either — it hangs off the student robot’s Control Hub to carry motors five and six.
When a card is stamped, everyone who worked on it marks one box in that category. Three boxes earns that category’s sticker. Awards are handed out at the last meeting before each break, not the moment they are earned. Stickers are printed by the team; the one exception is FULL STACK, an embroidered patch for the team shirt.
| Award | Category | To earn |
|---|---|---|
| DESIGN | Engineering & Planning | 3 cards |
| CAD | CAD & 3D Printing | 3 cards |
| CODE | Programming | 3 cards |
| BUILD | Building & Assembly | 3 cards |
| MAKE | Merch & Give-Away | 3 cards |
| THREADS | Team T-Shirts | 3 cards |
| OUTREACH | Marketing & Fundraising | 3 cards |
| FULL STACK | One card in every single category — all seven. The only award that is a real patch, for the team shirt. | |
Three more are awarded rather than counted: ASSIST, nominated by a different crew for helping them finish; FIRST LIGHT, for the crew present at the robot’s first drive, first autonomous or first match; and KEYSTONE, the coach’s award, once or twice a season.