Website Development

WPI Regional

2010-06-03T15:21:00.001-07:00

Hello World!!!!

Sorry that I haven't been posting for quite some time, so please forgive me.

Well, if you didn't know, March 11th-13th was our very first regional for this year's build season. Unlike past regionals, this year we decided to stay closer to home. We went to the FIRST ever FIRST WPI regional, which actually happened to be absolutely spectacular.

Even though we didn't win any awards this time around that didn't stop Team Paragon from having fun. We danced and cheered to every song, and we also made new friends with other teams such as the Green Reapers ( www.team1735.org ) and R.A.G.E ( www.ragerobotics.com ). That's all for now and Bookmark our page and keep reading! =)

Suffield Shakedown!!!!!

2010-02-21T10:46:00.000-08:00

Hello World,

If you didn't know, yesterday (Saturday February 20, 2010) was Suffield Shakedown. Now I'm guessing you probably want to know what Suffield Shakedown is and what it is all about. Suffield Shakedown is a where all the teams come together and 'unveil' their team made robot for the new game 'Breakaway'. Unfortunately our Team(Team Paragon) was unable to play in the Scrimmage. The reason for that was because our robot named 'Scurvy' (there may be a name change) drive chain was jumping off the gears. This simply means that our robot could only drive a few feet before it simply stopped. This is why 'Scurvy' was unable to make it to the competition.

Even with the set back, it didn't stop the Paragon Spirit. In fact, it made the team work even harder. During each match (with very few breaks) you heard our voices in the stands cheering on ourselves, other teams and also FIRST. We especially helped out the rookie team 3146 Granby G.R.U.N.T.S by cheering whenever they had a match. We didn't just cheer on other teams. We also Sang along with the music whether it was Ke$ha's Tik Tok or N*SYNC or even changing the lyrics from "Hey Micky" to "Hey Andy". However, those wasn't the only fun parts, it was also doing the Cotton Eye Joe, Cupid Shuffle, and also the infamous Cha Cha Slide. By doing all of this we were able to win Suffield Shakedown Spirit Award THREE YEARS IN A ROW!!!!!!!!! What made this award even better was that we did it without a robot to cheer for. This definitely seems like our most memorable Shakedown, but we'll never know until next year.

Until then, best of luck to the other teams and to those who don't have a team, keep reading about how we do! Don't forget to Bookmark our page and keep reading.
-Your blog hostess'
Xianni and Shila

BLOG three!

2010-02-09T14:25:00.001-08:00

Salutations, robot fans!

Today in robotics there's a lot of buzzing going on. Everyone's become hostile little worker bees to prepare for the upcoming event, "The Suffield Shakedown." But enough with the bees, because we'll be on our A-Game!

But let's get into it. Here's the daily scoop:

Electrical:

In Electrical, they completed a 3 day project which is the soul contribution that has to do with the wiring for the robot.

Mr. Susca explains the process to me and breaks it up in to 3 different work days:

Day 1: Electrical works on a 6 gauge battery wiring, to connect the main power, to the power distribution panels

Day 2: They work on primary input to route the 6 gauge wire which brings everything from the main power, to the power distribution board

Day 3: Concludes to output wiring wires all the robot control system (meaning speed control), and the robot function components

Admin:

In admin they worked on writing up and administering forms for the upcoming field trips (i.e., Suffield Shakedown & BATTLECRY@WPI) in which our robots will be competing. They also work on the continuous flow of pictures for our website, video montage, and information for the pitbook.

Mechanical:

Mechanical had nothing too exciting for us today. The drivers test was given to find out who will operate the robot in competitions. It's a little slow, but everyone's working conscientiously to meet their deadlines. What we like to call CRUNCH TIME! so less talky, more worky! (:

So as our deadline approaches, there will be more chaotic, busy, rapid working going on! Which means, stay in touch with our blog so you can keep track along with what we're up to!

Keep reading! and also check out the exciting new developments on our website http://www.team-paragon.org/ .

Pretty awesome huh?

Remember to bookmark us, follow us, love us.

And also have a lovely day.

Blog Entry Two!

2010-02-08T16:26:00.000-08:00

Hello robotics fans, good afternoon/morning/or night,

whatever time you may be reading this!

Glad to see you're back.

Well let's get right into it, shall we?

Today's Team Agenda

Admin:

Mama Susca worked on making the forms for the exciting upcoming trips!

Such as :

The Suffield Shakedown

and

Battlecry@WPI

Another one of our lovely administrators, Divya, persistently continued working on the pitbook, which is oh-so important to us! She also finished the community outreach, fundraising and GOING GREEN! campaign pages.

And you thought Team Paragon was all blue and orange, but we're also GREEN (not green with envy, all though the other teams may be)! But actually, Team Paragon is saving the environment and the world we live in one cup at a time, reusing cups and plates. Also recycling bottles and cans, while using the funds of recycled containers, to buy more things to benefit or help the team. So Team Paragon isn't just flashy robots and amazing people, but also money savvy and environmentally savvy. Quite a dashing combination of stupendous qualities, don't you think?!

Electrical:

In electrical, the work on a new layout for the robot, Devin says, "We made the final layout for the electroquarium and we're putting it on Jenny Craig" which is an amazing way to put it! Haha! For competitions their robot needs to adhere to a certain weight requirement/limit. So Electrical makes it lighter by "swiss cheesing" it. "Swiss cheesing" it, an interesting, and delicious term that basically means they are putting holes everywhere and anywhere they can, to reduce the weight.

FTC:

Today in FTC Linnea says, "We're trying to figure out a new name for our robot " The possible idea of George Flipsy comes about. Which is an adorable name don't you think?

Mechanical:

In Mechanical we see our dear friend Tim, cutting wood and metal parts for the final robot. He works diligently while finishing up the lexan ramp for the robot and practicing driving the practice robot.

Ah, Our robot's coming to life! It's so exciting!

Video Productions:

Video productions shot some awesome footage of both, mechnical and electrical at work, for the build season video/montage. It's made made every year, and is showed on Windsor's local television channel called WInTV. There, in the video montage, you can see for yourselves how dedicated, passionate, and eager Team Paragon is, about what they do. Times on when it will air will surely be posted on the website under the "MULTIMEDIA" section, along with some other fantastic videos for your viewing pleasure.

But that's all for now! Until next time, I am your blog host, and I will continue to fill you in on all your Team Paragon information needs.

Remember to keep up-to-date on what's going on with us and the buildsite!

And bookmark our page!

FIRST official blog post!

2010-01-26T15:05:00.000-08:00

Well hello there, world!

This is the official Team Paragon blog spot where myself, your lovely blog host, will be informing you about all the magic and hard work that goes into creating the amazing robots that we do, and the continuous strive for perfection that we always seamlessly always achieve as Team Paragon! ;)

So basically, there's a lot of juicy stuff happening at the Team Paragon Compound. We're a big family and together we embody what we need to, in order to function as a Team. This Team includes various segments that are organized to run Team Paragon properly, so we can proceed to make the robots.

These Team Segments include:

Administrators:

Programing:

Mechanical:

Electrical:

FTC:

Web:

TV Productions:

On my first day, I was able to get some details on what each group does.

Administrators:

Today the Administrators told me about what they're doing. Remember earlier how I said we we're a family? Well we are, we even have a team Mom! Yeah, that would be Mama Susca! She's our team mother. She guides us when we're lost, helps us when we need it, and she was kind enough to lend some of her time to inform me of what was going on.

On this evening, The Admins work diligently on the Team's Pitbook and team buttons. A Pitbook is pretty much Team Paragon's entire record. It "informs the world what we are, what we do, and how we do it," says Mama Susca. It is also presented to the judges during robotics competitions to show them all the amazing features and aspects of Team Paragon.

Programming:

In programming, Divya explains the workings of how to go about making a robot. She discusses that in order to understand how to build a robot, you must go over the basic codes to build one, and setting up a default for running it. She also talks about their future plans for programming the robot, and the possible actions it will take!

Pretty exciting, huh?!

FTC:

In FTC, Lance filled me in on what they were up to. He says, "building a secret weapon!" They work on critique a special device used for the game Hot Shot! that takes place at one of the competitions. In the game, our robot must demonstrate some of its amazing capabilities by picking up balls and shooting them into goals without hurting the other robots. Lance, Linnea, Mr. Johnson and Mrs. Carrol all put their heads together to construct a part of our robot in the best way they can so that it shines in its speed and strength.

Mechanical:

In Mechanical, They consulted programing in terms of the schematics and the ideas for what they wanted in the robot. Mechanical worked on a new design to construct and improve our new robot.

Web:

Web is where the Team Paragon website is constructed and edited. What we do is make the website pretty, informative, give praise to our sponsors, and show the competition what we're made of - and also, where we have our blog, where we invite you into our daily activities. Today in Web, the website design was worked on. Xianni, and Noah work as a tenacious team to design and edit the website banner, which is coming out amazingly! Also, Our wonderful mentors, Shila, Mr. Saunders and John help and guide us through the trials of Html!

T.V Production:

T.V Productions was absent for today, but Mr. Moore was able to fill me in on the happenings behind TV Productions. He explains that it's their job to take and edit the videos of the production of the robot. He also congratulates and commends Tyler for doing a wonderful job as our camera man. Woohoo!

Boy, were you able to absorb all that? As you can see, Team Paragon is a very productive team, but all the hard work is necessary when you're striving for perfection!

So until next time, I'm your blog host, Jenay, that will be keeping you posted with your daily robotic news feed.

Thanks for reading, and bookmark our page for more daily updates!

2010 Game hint #2

2010-01-07T13:00:00.001-08:00

My thoughts about the game hint#2

well, to me hint #1 looks like a game piece. my understanding of hint #2 is at the beginning of each each match a game piece will be placed on the yellow starting point. I am not really sure what the third field piece has to with this year's game.

Dylan M

FIRST OFFICAL MEETING!!!!!!!

2009-09-14T18:17:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,
Today was our first official meeting of the year. The meeting was very exciting due to the new students that came to become a part of the team. The two team captains did an excellent job explaining to the new hopefuls about everything our team is about. Although it was a really fun meeting, it was also one of the longest because we go through everything. We go through the pit book, the hand book, the groups and even the sub groups. Though a lot of us veterans have already gone through all this information many times we were there to show that we support our team and to also show that we truly are a family. By the end of the day we gained new members to our family. We were also signing up for EXCITING new coming events. Especially Bash At The Beach, which is one of the most exciting off-season events. At the end of the day many of the veterans had new students coming up to them asking them how long they been on the team, what they got out of the team for as long as they been there, and also if they had a fun doing FTC for a year before they really started doing FRC. Before everyone left, release forms and medical forms were handed out, filled out, and signed.

From Webmasters
Katie and Xianni :)

PS our next post should be next week. So keep on reading about Team Paragon

The WebSite

2009-09-10T16:05:00.000-07:00

Since our school ended last june we were without a site. It was a long process, but now we finally have our website up and running. Today we did more practice with HTML and alos made a Facebook Group and Twitter. Next week we'll update the site.

Thanks

Web team

Here is the BRAND NEW NEWS

2009-05-12T15:43:00.000-07:00

Well, recently we brought our team to BATTLECRY10 @ WPI. We made it to the quarter finals. We also got an award for our ability to do fast repairs.

We arrived at WPI at Friday at 4 P.M. and there were only seven of us instead of our normal 24. When we got there, there were mutiple teams on the field praticing. Most of the students were in the pits working on our robot and making everything go smoothly. After the practices we had a cookout where all the teams came together and ate on the green. After the cookout we went back inside the venue and the students and mentors who weren't in the pits went ahead and started to cheer and dance in the stands. When practicing was offically over we were in another part of the campus and went to an ice cream social where there were tons of games that you could play with other students.

Saturday: The actual competition began. The venue was hot, sweaty, and loud. The funny thing was, everyone enjoyed it. We made it to the quater finals and that's when our problems began - after a few intense back-to-back matches. Those matches caused our motors to overheat, but we were able to fix them quickly and that helped us gain a new award for fixing our robot quickly. After the competitons we went to a rest stop where a lot of the other teams were. While we were there we cheered and hung out with some of them.

News: This year we are saying goodbye to our seniors and our old captains and we are saying hello to our new captains and also our new students

Your webmasters Katie and Xianni :)

Web Site Goals

2009-04-28T17:06:00.000-07:00

As the web team for Team Paragon, we hope to accomplish new goals such as:

- add new interactive content to the website (google claendar, blog)
-re-desgin the multi-media
-change the layout
-recruit new members for web team

and more goals to come.

:)Your Web Masters Katie and Xianni.

Guess What?!?!?!

2009-04-28T17:02:00.000-07:00

YEAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
we have a blog now!!!!!!!