BLOG
2022 Build Blog Week Two
And we’re back for Week 2 of Build Season! It was an exciting week, full of new ideas. Of course, we enjoyed the snacks as well. We began the week on Saturday, January 15, with a full day of prototyping. For prototyping, we split into many groups, with one [...]
2022 Build Blog Week One
After 2 years without attending any competitions, Team Iron Claw is finally back for a proper FRC build season! On Saturday, January 8th, we gathered in the robotics classroom—with masks of course—to watch the FRC Kickoff Twitch Stream, expressing amusement at the blatant Ford advertising and surprise at [...]
Class Competition/Holiday Promenade
Class Competition For the class competition, we split the class into four different teams. Each team was given a rules manual and a few weeks to design a robot that fit said parameters, which is a direct representation of our build season process. The purpose of the [...]
2021 Class Kickoff
It's 2021, and all of us are finally back in person! For the past several weeks, we've mostly been doing some organization, but we also hosted a weekend workshop for students to gain some technical experience. Outside and in the metal and wood shop, students learned about the [...]
2021 End of Year
The end of the year is quickly approaching, and despite the circumstances, we were still able to do some robotics activities. Earlier this semester, we wrapped up our first Hackathon, where we gave small groups free rein over what they wanted to make. Currently, we're working on our [...]
2020 Chipotle Fundraiser
The robotics team is holding a fundraiser at the Blossom Hill Chipotle! Support the team by going to 640 Blossom Hill Rd in Los Gatos on Monday, December 7th between 5:00pm and 9:00pm. When you order, show them the flyer or tell them you are supporting the team, and [...]
2020 Build Season Photos
Although the FIRST Competition Season was cancelled, we had a lot of fun building the robot. We took a lot of photos along the way and compiled them into a Google photo album.
FIRST Season Cancelled
Team Iron Claw is extremely saddened to announce that we will not be attending any official FRC competitions this season since all FIRST events from here on out have been officially cancelled due to COVID-19 concerns. An official statement from FIRST reads: It is with deep disappointment that [...]
Competitions Postponed
Unfortunately, we have learned that both competitions we were planning to attend, San Francisco Regional (March 19-22) and Silicon Valley Regional (April 1-4), have been indefinitely postponed as a precaution to the spread of COVID-19. Postponing suggests that it will be held in the future, but FIRST has [...]
2020 Build Blog Week Seven
While we did not meet as often as we wish we could, students got together over our February break for a few days and got as much done as possible! Thus, here is our brief blog post. Our mechanical team has been working very hard to put together [...]
2020 Build Blog Week Six
Continuing our blog post from last week, we have more to say on the programming aspect of our team. Separate from the robot itself, some members have worked on Autodesk Synthesis in hopes of simulating our robot on a CAD model of the field without having our physical [...]
2020 Build Blog Week Five
Since last week, prototyping has been finalized along with the CAD of our superstructures. We are now moving onto finalizing as much of the entire robot CAD as we can. We had issues involving the general packaging of all of our components, but a few tweaks to some [...]
2020 Build Blog Week Four
To begin, our primary focus during the week was our CAD finalization and tuning of our drivetrain. We considered our overall packaging and how each of our mechanisms would fit together. We had to account for the amount of space we had available on our drivetrain, while keeping [...]
2020 Build Blog Week Three
Week three was centered around prototyping, much like week two. To begin, we had two main indexing prototypes. One was shaped like a C, dubbed the reverse scorpion. Balls travel along a belt before being brought to a shooter. In the photo, our single flywheel shooter is pictured. [...]
2020 Build Blog Week Two
This week, we continued with prototyping by splitting into three main groups: indexing, shooter, and intake. For indexing, or ball manipulation inside the robot, we decided to CAD and prototype the c-index as well as a spiraling prototype. Furthermore, the shooter group prototyped a single-flywheel shooter, and they [...]
2020 Build Blog Week One
We had a great start to the 2020 build season. On kickoff, some of our members headed to Pioneer High to watch the stream and get our kit of parts. Once we got the entire team at our classroom, we went over the release video and game pieces [...]
Offseason/Houston Recap
Since we secured a finalist position at the Silicon Valley Regional, our team qualified for the World Championships in Houston, Texas, which took place from April 17th to April 20th. In the weeks leading up to the championship, we held a team-wide fundraising effort to meet the high cost [...]
Competition Recap and Houston Announcement
Our first competition was the San Francisco Regional. We ran into technical difficulties, particularly with the electrical board. Our planning for assembly was not up to par, so we were faced with mechanical issues as well. From there, we knew what we had to do in order to [...]