The Robotics Club Team 980 of John Burroughs HS held its first meeting, Friday (Oct. 22) in the school’s Woods Shop (Mr. John Benne, instructor). Seniors Aaron Rifkin, Galina Malakhova and Alex Martinez introduced a large group of students the FIRST Robotics Competition program. We are VERY pleased that 17 students have expressed interest in joining Team 980. Recruitment is an important part of getting ready for the 2011 season and we’re off to a great start!
Team 980 has registered for it’s 10th season in the FIRST Robotics Competition program.
We’ve registered for the Los Angeles Regional, to be held at the Long Beach Sports Arena on March 24-26. This is our “home” regional event where we have won two of our three Regional Championships and twice were Regional Finalists. The Los Angeles Regional is held in an excellent location and will feature many of the top FRC teams from California.
Team 980 has also registered for the FIRST Championship in St. Louis (April 27-30). Since Team 980 did not participate in the Championship event last year, we are eligible to register early and did so! Team 980 is no stranger to FIRST Championship: we’ve participated in seven Championships in our history, with two appearances in division eliminations. Will we go to Einstein this year??
We plan to register for one additional regional event, most likely the San Diego Regional held March 10-12. This popular week #2 regional will teach us much about the new game and will feature a very competitive field: Teams 399, 599, 968, 973, 987, and 1538 have already registered.
We will learn about the new game at the Kickoff event, to be held Sat. Jan. 8. Between now and then, we have much work to do. We need to secure our build location, add new student recruits, obtain more sponsor support and add to our skill set in CAD, programming, web-site development, …
Welcome to the 10th season for Team 980 – let’s make it our best ever!
The 2010 SCRRF Fall Classic robotics competition will be held at John Burroughs High School on Saturday, Sept 25. Team 980 is the event host, coordinating the venue and volunteers for the competition. The competition is being played in the very modern, large, air-conditioned Main Gymnasium. The gymnasium accommodates sixteen pits as well as the playing field. The adjacent Multi-Purpose Room provides pit space for an additional dozen teams. As of Sept. 22, seventeen teams have registered for the event, with an additional pair of robots available to be shared by pre-rookie teams. The field includes Beach City Robotics (Team 294, 2010 World Champions), Beach Bots (Team 330, 2010 IRI Champions) and Eagle Robotics (Team 399, 2010 IRI Champions). The event allows teams to exhibit their robots to recruit new students, mentors and sponsors.
The above flyer provides more information regarding the event. The competition is open to the public, with no admission charge.
Team 980 built a “stand-alone” t-shirt cannon designed to be easily mounted onto a robot chassis for demonstration and outreach events. Starting just after our return from IRI, an air-powered cannon was designed, built and tested in less than two weeks. Several Team 980 students, particularly Joey, Galina, Aaron, Alex, Alejandro, Bruno, and Laura worked with mentors David Toyne, Gerry O’Rourke, AJ Yeckel and David Brinza on the cannon at the Neighbors Empowering Youth (NEY) Lincoln Ave facility on Saturdays and a few weekday evenings.
Team 980 t-shirt cannon - just add a battery!
Our t-shirt cannon was mounted to Team 2404′s Breakaway robot and was a big hit at the Los Angeles Sparks “City of Pasadena Night” event on August 4 at Staples Center. The crowd was awestruck by the height of the t-shirts fired from the cannon. The event was an exciting and successful demonstration of the NEY robotics program.
Erik Dreyer (Pasadena Education Foundation, Robotics Program Coordinator) posted a video of the t-shirt cannon firing four shirts into the Staples Center crowd in less than a minute: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8miC6lSntuw
Team 980 t-shirt cannon on FRC 2404 robot ready for action at Staples Center.
Our t-shirt cannon was in action again on Saturday, August 7 at Pasadena Councilman Chris Holden’s Block Party. A community event featuring many Pasadena organizations, including NEY. Students from Team NEY Techs, FRC2404, drove the robot on the street and fired t-shirts above the crowd. The robot demonstration attracted the attention of our local Congressman, Adam Schiff (California’s 29th District, which includes Burbank and Pasadena). Congressman Schiff was very impressed with the FIRST Program and his children expressed interest in building robots of their own!
Check out the video of the cannon firing a t-shirt at the link below:
Team 980 competed in it’s seventh IRI event on July 16-17. We faced very stiff competition from the field of 78 top-notch FIRST Robotics Competition team. Except for a radio failure in our first match, our robot and drive team performed quite well in our matches. In the end, we were among 45 other teams that did not compete in the elimination round.
Travis Cox and Matt Goldstein carry our robot from field after another intense match at IRI.
Another California team, the BeachBots (Team 330), finished as top-seed in the competition. After a four-hour marathon elimination round, the BeachBots went on to win IRI with a very strong alliance, including Teams 469 (Michigan), 359 (Hawaii) and 399 (Lancaster, CA).
Team 980 member Laura Toyne received a standing ovation for her original song performance at the IRI Talent Show on Friday night. Our trip to IRI was again an exciting and rewarding adventure!
Right after Team 980 returned from IRI, we started work on a t-shirt cannon to be used a robot demonstrations and promotional events. Our cannon will be featured at the Los Angeles Sparks “City of Pasadena Night” event at Staples Center on August 4!
Team 980 has an exciting post-season schedule through Fall of 2010. This very important part of our year features competitons with the best teams in FIRST and robot exhibitions to attract new students, sponsors and mentors. Team 980 is looking ahead to a successful 10th season in 2011; much of our future success is tied to our 2010 post-season.
On May 13, Team 980 demonstrated our robot at the annual Lockheed-Martin SpaceDay event in Riverside. Team 980 partnered with local Teams 2493 (Robokong) and 3295 (Poly Techs) to expose hundreds of elementary school students to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in action.
Team 980 is registered for the prestigious Indiana Robotics Invitational (IRI) event in Indianapolis on July 16-17. The field of 82 teams includes 8 of the 12 teams appearing on Einstein field at Championship. We are making upgrades to our robot over the next few weeks. We plan to meet on Tuesday and Thursday evenings (6 pm) and Saturday mornings (10 am) throughout June to get the robot ready for shipment by July 4. Team 980 members will receive e-mails regarding our plans and progress – check frequently!
We plan to compete in California off-season events: the Fall Classic (SoCal) and CalGames (Bay Area). The event locations have not yet been determined, but we’ll know this before IRI. Demonstrations and presentations to schools and sponsors are also on the horizon. We may be invited to demonstrate our robot at the Boston Scientific annual picnic on Saturday, June 12 (stay tuned for news!). We will hold student-led demos at a few schools in the fall – next year’s seniors are key players in these demos.
Team 980 succeeds because we set high goals. If we plan well, work smart, and do the little things right, good things happen. Come join the fun!
The 2010 FRC Breakaway official season season ended at the FIRST Championship in Atlanta on April 17. Team 294, Beach City Robotics (our alliance captain from the Los Angeles Regional), emerged as FRC Champions with their alliance partners: Team 67 (HOT Team) and Team 177 (Bobcat Robotics). The Einstein matches were classic, with some of the best teams in Breakaway battling in very close contests.
FRC 2010 Breakaway World Champions: 294, 67, 177
Last Saturday, Team 980 was selected by the #3 seed, Beach City Robotics (Team 294), to join Team 968 (RAWC) in the elimination rounds of the 2010 Los Angeles Regional. This alliance went on to play one of the most exciting finals competitions ever. Our alliance swept the quarterfinal matches over the #6 alliance, 10-7 and 11-4. We upset the #2 alliance (Teams 190, 233 and 2429), in two matches: 13-6 and 10-6. In the finals, the #1 alliance (Teams 330, 1717 and 1452) emerged as winners of the LA Regional after four hard-fought matches. The first match was a 12-12 tie, #1 alliance won the second match 14-10, our alliance won the third match 8-10, then hobbled by a battery failure in the 980 robot, we lost the deciding match 9-3. We ended our 2010 official FIRST season in terrific fashion, coming within just one victory short of a trip to the Championship.
Team 980 ThunderBots: 2010 Los Angeles Regional Finalists
Team 980 really pulled it all together at the Los Angeles Regional event. We improved our robot and driving skills consistently through the qualification round. Still, being selected for eliminations was a bit surprising since our robot appeared to be severely damaged in our last qualification match. The loss of drive belts and fracture of a flexure in our suspension system looked much worse than it was. After the match, we quickly repaired the damage with more robust components. A mentor from Team 968 visited our pit while the alliance selections were in progress and rushed to the field in time for the #3 alliance to select us as the third member. Our alliance developed a strategy that carried us right to the final match of the event. It was an exhausting, yet exhilarating competition.
Everyone on Team 980 should be proud of our success at our competitions this year. That success didn’t just happen, it was a result of hard work and dedication by the team. We owe a great deal of thanks to our sponsors and partners: NASA/JPL, Boston Scientific Neuromodulation, Neighbors Empowering Youth, Schroeder Torsion Bars, Solutions for Automation, Walt Disney Imagineering, Crystal View Corporation and some private donors.
Team 980 is exploring options for building our robot in Burbank near the John Burroughs campus. In the next few weeks, we’ll make contact with organizations such as the Burbank Rose Float Association, Walt Disney Imagineering and the City of Burbank. Looking ahead, Team 980 will attend the Space Day demonstration on May 14 in Riverside, do a robot demonstration for Burroughs HS (date TBD), compete in the Indiana Robotics Invitational (July 16-17, TBD), and perhaps in the Fall Classic (Sept), CalGames (Oct), and MadTown Throwdown (TBD) events as well.
Congratulations to everyone on Team 980 for an excellent 2010 season!
Look for an announcement for our post-season party (hopefully in late-April or early-May).
Team 980 is making final preparations for our “home” competition, the Los Angeles Regional. The event is held in the Long Beach Arena this Thursday-Saturday (Mar 25-27). The public agenda for the event is found here:
http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedfiles/community/frc/events/2010/2010_CA_Agenda.pdf
Information (including directions) regarding the Long Beach Arena are available here:
http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedfiles/community/frc/events/2010/2010_CA_SiteInfo.pdf
Some top-notch FIRST teams will be on-hand for an exciting competition and Team 980 plans to be in the mix on Saturday afternoon.
Team 980 is meeting Monday and Tuesday evening (5:30 pm to 8:30 pm) making final adjustments on the robot mechanisms and controls. On Wednesday evening, we will have an important meeting for packing equipment and arranging transportation for team members to Long Beach. Please attend this meeting!!
This may be our last official FRC event of the 2010 season, so let’s have a good turnout.
Please invite friends, teachers, parents and others to join us on Saturday.
Go, ThunderBots!
FRC Team 980 just completed its first competition of the 2010 season, the Arizona Regional held in Phoenix on March 11-13. Thirteen student members and four mentors traveled to Phoenix on Wed night to compete in a field of 56 FRC teams. We re-assembled and tested our robot on Thursday, then played ten qualification matches on Friday and Saturday.
FRC Team 980 at the 2010 Arizona Regional
After three long and hard days, the ThunderBots were awarded their first technical judged award in five years: the Motorola Quality Award. This award celebrates machine robustness in concept and fabrication. Our students were able to clearly describe design features that make our robot a strong and reliable machine to compete in this year’s game. Although we were not selected for elimination play, our team was high on the list of top-seeded alliances for our defensive strengths. After the finals, one of the teams confided that we would have been a better selection for the elimination round.
We now look forward to our “home” event, the Los Angeles Regional, to be held in the Long Beach Arena on March 25-27. Our goal is to fine-tune our roller and kicker with the Team 2404 robot, get some driver practice with our 2008 Overdrive robot and add a robot lift mechanism. The Chairman’s video and presentation needs to be completed as well. If we step up to the challenge, we will be a very strong team in Long Beach, possibly earning a trip to the FIRST Championship in Atlanta!
