Tag Archives: FRC

A bonus year with Team 95!

Posted on by
Reply

I felt like this year I got a bonus year of FIRST Robotics! Lex joined in 9th grade, R joined a year later, and E joined this year! She was a little up and down all season, but she stuck with it, had some new experiences, discovered some new skills, and formed some new friendships.

The team went to three events, as usual, but two of them were new events, one in Maine and the other in Vermont. Vermont’s first FRC event! Grasshoppers had to represent!

Cutie little grasshopper
Smart little grasshopper!
Alan and I went up to visit.
Preparing for alliance selection.
Team 95 invites…
Captain E

The UVM event had a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream robot! Alan and I went up to spend the day with E on the last day. Our ice cream robot picture was photo bombed by the guy who took Eve’s senior pictures. He takes a lot of sports photography for the school and other events. He was there photographing a sporting event at UVM and stopped by to get a few pics of robotics too. :)

It was really cool to see how important she is on this team. The coaches were frequently asking for her input and advice on alliance selection and other teams. She helped with organization and was the brave one who led the alliance selection team at each event.

Big smiles! Lex was happy to be back for an event.
R2D2 is a pin collector too.
The alliance select team, heading to the field. I love this picture!

For the district championship Alan, Lex, and I all went down to spend the final day with Eve. Districts is a bigger, longer event and Eve rocked it the whole time. She made it her goal to collect swag from every single team (she made a spreadsheet!) and wore the swag the whole time. There was a Star Wars group there (not sure if they were a team or something else), so there were R2s and Storm Troopers and other Star Wars characters wandering around the event.

Despite the fact that she complained about practices, dreaded going to events, and fussed a lot, she ended each event on a total high and made lots of friends. The coaches and freshman boys love her. She spent the whole drive home from the final event sad that the season was over and thinking of ways she (we) could continue to be involved in the future. :)

One way may be to continue making buttons for the team and maintaining the teams website. I’ve been doing it for the past few years and Eve took over this year. In the past the team had a tradition of giving away Keebler Grasshopper cookies to the other teams, judged, volunteers, etc after each event. Sadly Keebler stopped making those cookies (or changed something, I forget) and one coach decided to make cookies instead. She asked for volunteers to help, so of course I volunteered!

The season is now over. They had their “unpack the truck” meeting tonight. There will be a few other “off-season” and recruiting events over the summer. Eve is excited for all of them. I’m excited that she found something she enjoys, people who respect here, and, I got an extra year of robotics fun! Yay!

FRC – Event #1 2022

Posted on by
Reply

After almost exactly two years with no live events, Lex and B’Lake attended the FRC New England Regional event this past weekend. They had a great time, helping their team take home second place overall and the Excellence in Engineering award! Lex worked on the mechanics of the robot, named Hedy Lamarr this year, and the scouting program. B’Lake led the scouting efforts. Scouting is important to better understand your competition and to help you form powerful alliances. It’s something the team hasn’t done well in the past and wanted to focus on this year, and that they did!!

  • The Grasshopper’s robot hard at work, scoring points by putting “cargo” into the “upper hub.”
  • Two very tired boys, home from three days of excitement!

They were even nice enough to manage text conversations with all sorts of family as we peppered them with questions and comments from the peanut gallery (our homes). The boys both had sore throats and scratchy voices when they got home. However, they are already thinking about the next match later this month!

Not to leave Eve out of this post, she was reinvigorated to join the team! When we went to the event back in 2020, Eve got excited to join the team and help with the “outreach” (swag, bling, social media, etc.) side of things. The Grasshoppers are EXCELLENT at the tech side, but not so much at the other side. Teams that are much bigger have impressive social media support, recruiting activities, and community involvement — all of which garner them rewards at the events! When we got home in 2020 she and I worked on creating buttons for the team (most of the other teams had them) to hand out to their alliances, and some signage. All of which has since sat on the shelves in our mudroom for the past two years! The team was happy to have the swag for this event though.

At the beginning of this season Eve went to a meeting and decided it wasn’t for her. However, watching from the couch at home, she got re-inspired. She started sketching mascot ideas, signage ideas, and how to promote the team. When she saw the award for Best Imagery, she thought “I can do that!” So she decided she does wants to join the team after all! We’ll see if her motivation carries through to actual action next week. :)

Big little things around here

Posted on by
1

Eve come home yesterday with a few forms to show me. She started pulling them out of her bag and announcing them — course planner for next year, course selection sheet, and a drivers ed application. DRIVERS ED?!? I was NOT prepared for that.

I have been bugging B’Lake to bring home an application so he can take drivers ed this summer. Lex got his license and I was prepared to do the next two in order. The idea that Eve could take drivers ed this summer NEVER even occurred to me! Of course, she will be old enough and could have her permit in time, but in my head it was one kid at a time, not two at once!

Also, Lex and B’Lake are at a FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) meet this weekend. They left with their team after school this afternoon, which means they were packing and prepping last night and this morning. This is the first time Lex is off on his own. Not really on his own, of course, but not with parents or grandparents. They are staying in a hotel and taking the bus to and from the competition. Unfortunately (for me) FRC isn’t allowing non-team attendees, so I can’t go watch.

Lex joined the team his freshman year and we went to our first FRC competition in March 2020. Two weeks later the world shut down and all further FRC competitions were cancelled. We all really enjoyed the competion and were bummed that we couldn’t attend any more. Last year the season was all virtual, which wasn’t much fun for Lex. This year they are back in person and able to hold the competitions, even without an audience. I’m happy the kids can do this, even if I can’t be there to watch. :) Luckily they will be livestreaming it, so if you want to follow along, you can do so here: https://www.thebluealliance.com/team/95

I’ll be watching and cheering them on! Maybe my buddy, who can’t possibly be old enough to take drivers ed this summer, will watch with me.

Lex

Posted on by
Reply

My last post had a bunch of pictures of Eve, no good ones of Lex, so I thought I’d share this from tonight. His First Robotics Competition team has been meeting via Zoom for the past few months and working on a Covid-alternate competition involving mini robots. Lex got his robot (a Romi) and a Raspberry Pi kit this week and has been having fun building and programming it. Tonight he had it running and “interacting” with the cat. It was funny. I should have made a video, but I didn’t. Oh well. Here he is hard at work tonight. His career path seems pretty clear. :)

Mema, maybe he’ll have it running and ready to roll over your toes when you come visit next month. :)

FIRST Robotics Competition

Posted on by
5

After many years with FIRST Lego League (FLL), Lex has moved up to the big leagues!  FLL is for kids in grades 4-8 and the next step FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is for grades 9-12. He joined the team for pre-season this fall and has been loving it ever since. The season officially kicked off in January and they had their first competition this weekend. They are Team 95 – The Grasshoppers!

Lex has spent most of his time on the robot construction (versus programming or driving). He comes home after practices and tells me about the problems they came across and how they solved them. He loves it! At the competition he helped with repairs between matches, and scouted the other teams to help determine who they wanted to partner with for the second day.

The team took a bus to the event after school on Thursday. Alan drove down that night, checked into the hotel, and watched the event on Friday.  Eve and I went down Friday after school and watched the event live on Saturday.  We all enjoyed watching it live streaming on Twitch when we couldn’t be there in person! :)

The guys in blue, under the #95, are the drive team for The Grasshoppers. They control the robot during the competition.

This is their robot in action.

Handsome boy.

There is a strict rule that you have to wear eye protection in the pit area. Eve somehow went from refusing to wear any eye protection to insisting on wearing ALL of the eye protection.

She can be silly sometimes. :)

I couldn’t help noticing that the other teams had lots more swag than our team has. Flags and banners and buttons and signs.  Eve and I immediately got to work planning for the next event. At the beginning of the season I offered to help with their website. They immediately took me up on the offer. I think I have PR/Marketing in my blood. :)

The Grasshoppers were knocked out of the competition in the semi-finals because one of their alliance teams knocked over an opponents robot. There was some debate about how intentional the action was and how top heave the opponent’s robot was, but the judges ruled it a foul and they got no points for the round. It was sad. I heard lots of grumbling from the parents (myself included), but nothing from the kids. Lex had nothing but positive things to say. I was impressed!

When the award ceremony came, the kids weren’t sure if they’d get anything since they didn’t make it past the semi-finals.  Everyone has excited when they won the Industrial Design Award and the judges mentioned the “singular,” a specific part of the Grasshoppers’ robot that had impressed them.

This part looks a lot like FLL! :) Line up for a long row of high-fives, trophy and team photo at the end.

He even let me take a picture of him with the trophy! I’m a lucky mom! :)

The team has another meet in two weeks, and a third (if they qualify) in April. I’ve already designed some buttons to have available for the next meet! Lots of other teams were giving out buttons and our team had none. However, our team did give out a package of Keebler Grasshopper cookies to each team. :) Apparently that’s a tradition.