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FRC - FIRST Robotics Competition FIRST, (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. The program involves teams of mentors and high school students that collaborate to design and build a robot in six weeks. This robot is designed to play a game that is designed by FIRST and changes from year to year. This game is announced at a nationally simulcast kickoff event in January. Regional competitions take place around the United States and Canada, but FIRST has a multinational following that further includes the United Kingdom, Brazil, and Israel. Please visit http://www.usfirst.org/ for more information not cover in our web site about FIRST . FRC, (Full size Robotics
Competition). Our team has built We build the robot in
the garage of the mentors Joe and Kim, and you would think that would not be
a good place to build but compared to some schools that don't even have a
place to build it is great. The garage is finished, painted, heated and well
lighted. They have a metal lathe, ban saw, drill presses, table saw, welder,
hand tools of all types and cordless drills. We have machined
Our team helped mentor team 2145 Lake Fenton HAZMAT: http://web.lake-fenton.k12.mi.us/jawebste/ With our information they were able to receive funding from the State of Michigan and then they received additional funding from a sponsor that they acquired. We took our team and robot to their school and gave a demonstration. We also discussed items that they would need to know during build. Time to time we stopped by their school to assist with their build and answer any questions they had. We offered use of our work shop and donated items for their use on the robot. Our mentors even traveled (at their own expense) to their first event to help them through the inspection period. During their competition they also helped with tips on strategy and teamwork. When school started
later that year, their robot was in pieces and needed to be rebuilt for a
local competition that they had entered. With only a few day's left to
rebuild, they brought their robot to our work shop and we were able to help
them completely rebuild their robot just in time for competition at the
Kettering Event . We installed our pneumatics in their robot, they where
unaware that they were suppose to order the cylinders during the original
build. Other items our team helped with was the formation of the MMRA Mid-Michigan Robotics Alliance .We thought that if a group of teams could get together, they as a group could help each other and also help the community better. We also found that local groups where more willing to give money to a large group of teams than a single team. The MMRA helps put on the Kettering University off season event, the Lego practice event, the Lego Fever event, and the state championship Lego event. We assist Kettering University with the season Kick Off by selling food and help set up the demonstration field. The MMRA is looking forward to help with more events to come and help with other community items. The 2008 robot was designed to pick up a large 40 inch ball and hurdle it over an overpass rack while racing around a track. We designed our robot to draw the ball in with a wheel and lift the ball to the height that we needed and than throw the ball over the rack. We wanted to do this with out stopping. The robot functioned but did not work as well as we had hoped. It took too long to lift the ball and the front arm would get bent and not allow us to grab the ball. The students did a great job in the pits to keep the robot working for upcoming matches and did a great job at the Great Lake Competition and conducted themselves very professional and kept a close eye on safety. After the competition we redesigned the robot and used pneumatics to grab and lift the ball. With this new design in functioned much better. We have been practicing and getting ready for the fall Kettering competition. |
some award winning very competitive robots that have ranked high many times.
We are proud of our student built robots and continue to strive to have our
students build as much of the robot as possible. We except high school
students from any school and any area as long as they follow our rules of
safety and respect of others. Our students are able to fix almost anything
and are more than willing to help other teams in need. We like to win but
that comes second to fun in learning. Every time a student learns they win
and we have succeeded in our mission. Oh yeah its fun to build a robot too.
all
parts of the robot in the garage and rarely have to send it out. This cuts
down on the build time and also allows the students to see and work on all
aspects of the build. Their also is a carpet that can be rolled out to test
the robot with. 
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