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Team 980 Planting New Seeds with The Burbank Board of Education!

In order of left to right: Sydney, Kitty (the robot), Ali, and Luci

Recording of the meeting found here (980 comes on at around 3:30 to 35:00).

“Burbank Board of Education Meeting”, Burbank City Hall, November 17, Fall, 2022

City Hall’s Board Room. Mentors, parents, students. All eyes turned towards Team 980 Thunderbots as they marched in with their current robot, “Kitty” (named for how the robot “coughed up” hairballs from their poor carpet). Lead mentor David Brinza introduced the team and a personal testimonial about FRC’s benefits from student Yogini Vazirani led to the main event: mentor Robin Dorfman. Robin recounted the strong roots of their team, going back to 2002, giving the board a sense of the 980 perseverance and growth. Her comprehensive business plan (found under “Resources”) detailed what it’d take to bring robotics – either through FLL or FRC – to all Burbank schools (and combined with a succinct robot demonstration) was more than enough to ignite the STEAM (yes, art is engineering and vise versa)-powered fire within the hearts of the board members. The team’s two-pronged method worked beautifully to encourage further enthusiasm, questions, and plans for discussions regarding official robotics implementations throughout Burbank! 

It seems it’s true what they say: if you see lightning, then Thunder isn’t too far behind. The team thanks the generous board members for having them!

— Luci

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Team 980 Finishes Out 2022 With Their Best Wheel Forward!

Video of Updated Collector/Shooter

“Tidal Tumble”, Ventura Fairgrounds, October 29-30, Fall 2022

After complications with their collector throughout the Ventura Scrimmage at Da Vinci Schools, the 980 Thunderbots roll into Tidal Tumble, not only with their prior two sets of collecting spinner wheels, but three! Throughout the 2022 competition season, they knew that the collector with three spinners would definitely be on the list for improvements due to a flimsy structure and inconsistent collection. Tidal Tumble confirms their new collector’s many benefits: with a more solid structure holding the collector up, it ensures a consistent compression (and therefore collection) of cargo; once the cargo makes it into the main body of the robot, it’s constantly being pushed through to the shooter without a chance of bouncing out; and the improved pneumatic retraction/extension system assists with raising the collector up/down much quicker, limiting worry about it (accidently) reaching into other robots. 

Combined with their auto-aiming high goal shooter, Team 980 firmly established themselves as a force soon to be reckoned with for the 2023 season.

— Luci

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Team 980 Takes Breaking a “Leg” to the Next Level at the Da Vinci Scrimmage!

“Da Vinci Scrimmage”, El Segundo, October 15, Fall 2022

As a small event with approximately a dozen teams, Da Vinci’s Scrimmage was designed as a casual practice event for teams to try their new upgrades – Team 980 was sure to make the most of this opportunity, especially testing new robot drivers/operators. Despite not being able to finalize their fully fledged, three wheel collector system in time, they were still able to reap the benefits of a newly mounted pneumatics system for the collector’s extension/retraction. By placing the system higher up, more consistent compression was exerted on the cargo, bringing them more smoothly into the belly of the beast and quicker up/down motion, minimizing the risk of accidental – possibly damaging – collisions. However, tragedy struck when a collector arm snapped in half. Rather than conceding to fate, the students rallied their forces to fix the fracture best they could – and it paid off! With their quick thinking, Team 980 was back competing in just a few rounds, playing out the rest of their matches for the day. 

Team 980 is scheduled for Tidal Tumble in two weeks time; will their finalized collector be revealed in all its glory? How will the students’ determination manifest itself against any challenges coming their way? Is Team 980 Thunderbots on their road to greatness?

— Luci

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FRC 2022 Season: Los Angeles Regional

FRC980_LosAngelesRegional_2022

FRC Team 980 participated in the 2022 FRC Los Angeles Regional at DaVinci Schools on March 31 – April 2, 2022.

Our robot competed in every match and show much improvement from the Ventura County Regional held three weeks earlier. Our robot was able to score two cargo elements during autonomous, was much more efficient in collecting and scoring cargo in the upper hub during teleop mode, and was very consistent at hanging from the middle rung at the end of matches.
The competition field was very strong and we found our alliance out-gunned in most of our qualification matches. We had several matches which were very close (including a tie!). Although we finished 34th out of 42 teams, our performance was consistent and strong. Based on our scoring, we should have been selected for the elimination round (unfortunately, we weren’t).

FRC980_Yogini_2022

A bright spot for Team 980 was one of our students (Yogini Vazirani) being selected as a Dean’s List Finalists at the Los Angeles Regional! Yogini was cited for her passionate dedication to FIRST and her efforts to promote FRC in Burbank, both her individual and leadership contributions to Team 980 for the past two years, and her inspiration of team mates in promoting the mission of FIRST.

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FRC 2022 Season: Ventura County Regional

FRC 980_VenturaCounty_Regional_2022

In our first competition of the 2022 FRC season (and first since March 2020, due to COVID), FRC Team 980 participated in the 202 Ventura County Regional, held at Port Hueneme, CA on March 10-12, 2022. Teams were restricted to a minimal crew (due to COVID protocols), but Team 980 fielded a very capable pit crew and drive team.
Our robot performed in every match and was able to score cargo in autonomous mode, collect and score additional cargo in teleop mode, and hang from the middle rung at the end of the match. Due to favorable partnering, Team 980 was ranked in the top 10 at the end of the first day. Ultimately, we finished at 6-5 ranked in 19th place out of 40 teams, but we were not selected for the elimination rounds.
The 2022 FRC Ventura County Regional was a successful event for our mostly rookie team. We learned a lot and immediately started plans to upgrade the robot for our next event in Los Angeles three weeks later.