PHOENIX - This is it. The last week of the build. Next Tuesday, February 19, all teams will need to crate and ship their robots to one of 33 regional competition sites around the world. Ours will be shipped to a drayage location right here in Phoenix where it will remain until the Arizona Regional Competition at Veteran's Memorial Colisuem, March 6, 7 and 8.

We're looking pretty good. We had been working on the robot in two separate sections to allow concurrent development of our manipulation arm and the software needed to run the robot. The hardest part - an elevator to lift the 48 inch diameter ball high enough to clear the six and a half foot overpass on the playing field - is working well. We will now need to add the "grabber/shooter" which will hold the ball in place while lifting and shoot it across the overpass. We will be adding a couple of extra work days to our schedule to make sure we complete this prior to shipping. Kinda like a real engineering project. :-)

Desert Ridge High School has graciously arranged to hold a scrimmage this weekend for all the Arizona teams to try out their robots in a competition setting prior to ship. Teams with working robots will be able to take the field with other robots to test their designs and get a feel for what the game will REALLY be like with 6 robots together on the playing field. Our thanks to them for providing us this opportunity.

Come back next week to see if we actually made the dealine. Wish us luck!