Recap, Kickoff, and robots, oh my!

Hi Blog! Long time no see! You’re probably wondering what we’ve been up to since our last update, well, the answer is quite a bit. Here instead of a nice long essay in MLA format we can do some quick bullet points (the best way to write a list FYI) to update you the past months:

• Summer: We presented two of our robots at the Springfield Township Library with Team 3974 e=McD and team 5181 La Salle Robotics. We got to walk (and Siggy drived) down Germantown Pike led by Mr. Palac in his red Jeep! Even with all this fun we still had to do a little work and organize the entire shop.
• September: We held our 8th annual off-season event girlPOWER and attended the off-season competition Havoc! We also recruited over 12 new members through open houses and freshmen orientation events! AND OUR PROGRAMMERS FOUND OUT THEY WOULD BE APART OF BETA TESTING(!!!!), so our programmers get to be apart of a small team that test out the new control system before the new season!!!!!!! (we were very excited as you can tell)
• October: Spooky Scary Fuel Shooters! Right after Havoc we took to the shop to teach our new members how to prototype and build a mechanism. And what’s a better way to do that than have them actually build a fuel shooter that would COMPETE at Ramp Riot. So we spent the entire month building our amazing new mechanism!
• November: November was very busy for us, we not only competed at Ramp Riot (and had an amazing time), but we also attended two FLL competitions so cheer on and help our 3 teams! (Congrats to the NFA NorBots on winning the Project Award!) We were even went back to Barnes and Nobles Mini Faire to show off Siggy and Firefly to everyone in the store! We ended our month by hosting a Girl Scout Troop and taught them how to drive our robots, build robots out of batteries and toothbrushes, and even learn to program an FLL robot. (Super proud of the Girl Scouts that earned their Robotics Badge!)
• December: IT’S STARTING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE KICKOFF!!! With one month until Build Season we wanted to make the most out of our last few weeks of normal sleep schedules and social lives. So we attended Comcast Bootcamp and filmed a vlog (link below) and learned a multitude of new information. AND OUR PROGRAMMERS PRESENTED BETA TESTING!!!!!!!! Early in the month we also made some new friends. We coordinated a hang out with Team 5181 La Salle Robotics where we eat a lot of cookies and played some really cool games. Later we had another Mock Kickoff! This time we invited Team 5181 La Salle Robotics and Team 272 the Cyber Crusaders to join us and learn about different lifting mechanisms that could have been used during 2011 LogoMotion (is Coach Farrell a mind reader when it comes to FRC games?). We also got to spend some time at the Ronald McDonald house cooking food for the residents and even showing off our robots and teaching the children how to drive them!
• January (RIGHT NOW): With Kickoff on the horizon we really went into overgear trying to get ready for this season… Until the snow hit... Our school was off for 2 days in a row and had one early dismissal so sadly our dismay, we were able to go to Kickoff, but we could not be in shop 2 days prior to Kickoff and missed our first Monday! BUT we’re back and kicking, building several prototypes for our floor pick up mechanism. We started Kickoff with a brainstorm session where we came up with fun names for different robots and even played our own game of StuBots (some mentors even joined in!). And now with shop everyday we hit another roadblock… Finals start Tuesday. So Today (Saturday the 13th) is the last day shop will be open until Thursday afternoon. So for now we are trying to finish up a practice frame for our programmers so they can continue their work on Autonomous. WE ALSO UPLOADED OUR VLOG FROM LAST MONTH LINK IN THE BIO!!!!! But as we’re getting more and more excited for POWERUP we need to give a few reminders for our robo-nerds taking Exams this season:
  • Use the soundtracks from Boss fights in video games while studying because it will help you concentrate
  • Have snacks so you can POWERUP after studying for long periods
  • Take breaks so you can charge your batteries
  • “Switch” off at night and get as much sleep as possible
  • Balance your “scales” of life with conversations with family and friends and studying so you don’t overwork yourself
  • Don’t grind your gears if you don’t understand something, just take a deep breath and open your emergency release valve.

And this has been our year so far! We will make sure to update as much as possible this year and keep an eye out for new vlogs that will be coming your way all season!
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Peace, Love, Robots,
The Firebirds
Vlog Link!!!!!: www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0jrznXdddM
​Editor Note: ONE OF OUR MENTORS MADE US A BATTERY CART AND I'M VERY EXCITED!!! SO I'VE INCLUDED A PICTURE BELOW!!!!