Blog Post #1: Pre-Project

I have participated in robotics competitions since sixth grade when I joined my school's Lego robotics team. I have had a love for engineering and design long before with both of my parents being engineers and sharing their passion with me as I grew up. Despite doing robotics for seven years, I have always been working with a team and have never made something that complicated from scratch alone. 

For my project, I am going to be creating a sub-one-pound "antweight" combat robot that adheres to the ruleset described in the SPARC Robot Construction Specifications outlined here: http://sparc.tools/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/SPARC_Robot_Construction_Specifications_v1.3.pdf.

I plan on having two final robots built at the end: One that uses only plastics and foam that would qualify it for the plastic antweight class at competitions and another one that uses other materials like Carbon Fiber, AR500 steel, and flexible TPU filament for the general antweight class. I have very limited experience with all of these materials outside of regular PLA filaments. Throughout my project, I will learn how to machine some of these materials and incorporate them into the designs I am making. I hope to be able to take these robots to competitions after the completion of my Hawken Project. 

My mentors for this project are Mr. Nick DiGiorgio, Director of Maker Spaces at Hawken School, and Professor Greg Lee of Case Western Reserve University. I will do most of the work for my project at home with my 3d printer and will utilize Hawken School's Fab Lab to machine some of the parts I need like covers made out of carbon fiber.