Check out FIRST Robotics Competition
Team 238's
Fall/Winter 2016 Newsletter

FIRST Robotics Competition
Team 238
Fall/Winter 2016 Newsletter

OFFSEASON EVENTS

The team attended Mainely SPIRIT on Saturday, September 17 in Oakland, Maine! We were trying out people for the Drive Team for the 2017 season, so during the Qualification Rounds we had a different Drive Team set up in every match and the group who did the best during those rounds became the Drive Team during the Playoff rounds. We finished as semi-finalists! We also won the Wicked Best Cheeyah Award for the team with the best cheering squad in the stands!

We hosted our own offseason event at Memorial High School in Manchester on Saturday, October 29. River Rage this year was a milestone for the team and FIRST as a whole because this year was the 20th consecutive year we have held this offseason event. This is also the longest running off season FIRST event. Our team won our second event of the season with our Alliance Partners 5813 and 1058.

We traveled to Prospect Mountain High School in Alton, NH to compete at the Battle of the Bay on Saturday, November 12. During this event, we continued to train new people for the Drive Team. Although we didn’t perform as well as we had hoped, we all had fun! We finished as Quarterfinalists with Alliance Partners 58 and 166.

TROPHY CASE

The team took a big step this year to gain more school recognition by designing and building a trophy case! Tom (one of our mentors) took a month to design the trophy case. It then took 2 months to build. Abbie worked for about a week to get it all stained. It showcases our medals, trophies and plaques. Several team members worked together to get it installed at the school.

SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT

Bosch really increased their support of the team this year and became a Crusader Level Sponsor providing both funds, tools and George Berg, a new mentor for the Finance subteam. George has worked closely with the Finance team to create an accurate, working budget that will be presented to the team in January.

We were invited to participate in the first annual Bosch Day on Friday, September 9th at Bosch Thermotechnology in Londonderry, NH. Bosch presented FIRST with a check, accepted by FIRST President, Don Bossi. Throughout the day, at least 30 team members attended the event and enjoyed learning about Bosch products. The team was invited to showcase our robot, Tumbler, alongside two Tesla electric cars, a dune buggy, Corvettes, 88 racing car and electric bicycles. The team and attendees from Bosch took turns driving Tumbler around the parking lot, driving over one of the defenses from FIRST Stronghold, the cheval de frise.

This fall we were also invited to participate in a Bosch FIRST team contest to answer the question “Why is FIRST important to you?” in a two-minute video posted and shared on Facebook. The videos were judged on creativity and inspiration, use of Bosch and the responses via Facebook. We won the video contest and were awarded with $2500 more in tools from Bosch! Watch our award-winning video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grhoLjezW7g

Thank you Bosch!!!

TEAM REORGANIZATION

This summer the team decided to update the organizational structure of our team for two reasons. First, as the team operates like a business, we rolled out three major divisions to ensure all business needs were covered. Secondly, we wanted to ensure that each member of the team had the opportunity to lead a subteam and work in different divisions of the team for a more well-rounded experience and development of additional skillsets.

Technical Division Update

Software Subteam
The software subteam has been working to restructure some parts of our code, now using abstract classes to make our code simpler. We also have done some basic training on how to use GitHub for both our old and new members, to avoid any issues that we have had with it in the past. Most importantly, we have been and are still working on integrating a Vision Tracking System to make our future robots perform as best as they can.

Mechanical Subteam
The mechanical subteam has been working hard, cleaning and organizing the shop. We also have been training the members of our team on how to use the equipment in the shop. We are working on a plan to construct two robots during build season so that we are still able to practice driving after we are required to bag our competition robot. We are also working on a new layout for our storage space (aka The Cave) for better functionality during Build Season.

Community Division Update

In November, we helped the Memorial High School Booster Club set up for their annual craft fair; the whole team help prep the floors, laid out the booth areas and put out the tables the night before the craft fair.

One of our fellow Manchester teams, Team 501, the Power Knights, invited us to design and build a float for the annual Manchester Christmas Parade. We had a few team members that worked with Team 501 on the design of the float for a few weeks and a group of us also walked alongside the float in the parade and handed out candy canes to the spectators.

We also held multiple sponsor presentations and demonstrations over the summer for our amazing sponsors Bosch, Texas Instruments and Sunrise Labs.

If you are interested in purchasing a ticket for our Cash Calendar raffle that will be held throughout the month of February send an email to mmhsfrc238@gmail.com.

Look for new fundraisers coming up!

Operations Division Update

The administration subteam continues to refine team documentation, including sign-in forms, event registration forms, and team organization. The finance subteam is finalizing the team budget and will be presenting to the team in January.

The logistics subteam is working on development of an electronic/paper tracking system for robot parts as they get built in order to better track design and completion of parts as well as for compiling the final Robot Cost Sheet.

The operations division is also working on preparations for the team to attend the events that we have signed up for this season.

Don’t forget - FIRST Robotics Competition kicks off this Saturday. We will learn about our new challenge for the season - FIRST STEAMWORKS! Check in at this link for game updates: http://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc/game-and-season

Upcoming Events:

1/7/17: FIRST Robotics Competition Kickoff
Southern New Hampshire University
Hooksett, NH

3/4/17 - 3/5/17 Granite State District Event
Windham High School
Windham, NH

3/18/17 - 3/19/17 Greater Boston District Event
Revere High School
Revere, MA

3/25/17 - 3/26/17 Southern NH District Event
Bedford High School
Bedford, NH

Thank YOU to all our wonderful sponsors and supporters!

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FIRST Robotics Competition Team 238 Fall/Winter 2016 Newsletter

FIRST Robotics Competition
Team 238
Fall/Winter 2016 Newsletter