Week 4 & 5 Update

As 930 has passed our half way point on our build season, we have been making substantial progress on all aspects of our team. We have been ensuring the best for our upcoming regional, the Midwest Regional, in Chicago on March 8th!

Electromechanical has been working hard CADing, fabricating, and wiring the physical components of our robot to assure it’s ready for the competitive environment that is to come. From confirming the technicalities of the elevator to managing logistics behind our swerve, our electromechanical students have been playing a vital role in the team’s success. 

Our programming team started a new chapter in their BEAR Bytes initiative by hosting bi-weekly live streams on YouTube. Here, they answer questions about various programming topics sent in from viewers or members part of the Discord or live chat. Programming has been working hard with the software elements of our robot to ensure the most effective success in our future competitions. They have been working with the robots ability to auto balance in both auto and teleop, as well as continue to work with the usage of April Tags in our match strategy. 

Team 930’s other sub teams have also been hard at work completing critical achievements towards our team's success. For starters, our strategy team has been working on their scouting app and match database, preparing it for the upcoming competitions. This proper work and data analysis ensures 930 is ready for an accurate pick list and match strategy. 

Our business team continued to work our logistics regarding our sponsors and apparel. They worked on confirming details with sponsors to assure proper funding is provided to teaching our students notable skills and experience towards their futures. Apparel progress was also continued as team shirt designs were finalized with a decal on the back, thanking all our generous sponsors. 

Next, our FIRST Impact team has had a busy and productive week. They have been working on finalizing and submitting our essay and executive summaries after weeks of hard work put into perfecting them. They have also been consistently practicing their performance for the FIRST Impact presentation, ensuring all materials are prepared for judging. 

Along with the submission of FIRST Impact, the team submitted our Woodie Flowers essay nominating our fantastic and dedicated head mentor, Brian Scharles Jr. 930 also nominated two of our electromechanical students Matt C. and Ealen W. for the Dean’s List award. This award allows us to recognize students for their dedication and incredible work towards the team’s success.  

Our first regional is a little over 3 weeks away (March 8th) we encourage all sponsors and fans to cheer us on virtually or in person at the Midwest Regional down in Chicago Illinois!

Moving Day, Week 2 & 3

Moving 

Throughout the past 2 weeks, Team 930 has been working hard in preparation for our ultimate goal of moving into our new facility. These past few weeks have been filled with organizing and planning in order to efficiently complete our move. While some logistics are still being worked out, as of the 28th we are proud to say we have officially moved. Team 930 wants to give a huge thanks to our sponsor Instrument Development Co. and the Mukwonago Area School District for all of the help and support along the way. We appreciate everything they are doing to support our success with this building. 

Our new building gives us access to enough room for a complete field, which betters our success as a team and allows us to be more prepared for the competition season. The new building also allows us to give each subteam their own dedicated space to assure the most efficient work can be done. With the building housing only our team, we are able to keep ourselves organized and avoid the interference of other activities that may have previously affected us at the High School.

Robot Progress 

Despite the moving process we’ve still been working hard on our robot progress. With the new challenge of the cones the team has been coming up with multiple solutions on how to effectively score and cycle throughout the match. While we prefer to keep most details confidential for the time being, we are excited to show off our swerve elevator robot later in the competition season.

Sponsors

Since sponsors play such an impactful role throughout our robotics season, we wanted to give a big thanks to them. From funding our materials and competition for the season to overall giving our students skills for the future, we are grateful for everything they do. Coming competition season, we invite all of our sponsors to come to our events including the Midwest Regional in Chicago IL, Wisconsin Regional in Milwaukee WI, & Greater Pittsburgh Regional in Pittsburgh PA. We would love it if they would come and see what all their generous funding is going towards and to meet up with the team of students whose futures they’ve inspired.

2023 Kickoff and Week 1

After holding MROC, Team 930 further attended 2 other offseason competitions. The first, Indy RAGE, promoted women in STEM with an all-girls drive team. We ended up winning the event, providing learning opportunities for all members of the team. The final offseason competition, Roboteer Rumble, was a bonding opportunity for new and veteran team members to compete in an intense event. With our offseason robot, 9930, playing critical defense we also won the event! Following the completion of our preseason, we received our new game for the 2023 season, CHARGED UP, and are extremely excited to get to work!

On January 7th, Team 930 hosted a Kickoff event with teams #5418 New Berlin Blitz, #6421 Warriorbots, #6574 Ferradermis, and #8701 Graffiti. Here we watched the game reveal animation for the 2023 season, CHARGED UP. 

The purpose of this year’s game is to create as many links as possible through placing of cones and cubes in their alliance grid. Robots will start in their alliance areas, also called communities, and have 15 seconds to run their autonomous path, uncontrolled by their human drivers. Following that 15 seconds, robots will be in the teleoperated period with the robots drivers aiming to score cones and cubes from on the field or from their substations where human players stand. Scoring more cones and cubes power the teams’ communities, gaining more points in the match. Having 3 cones or cubes in a row creates a link, getting teams closer to achieving a rank point. 

In the last 30 seconds of the match, robots drive to their designated Charge Station in attempts to balance and engage to earn points. 

For further information, click here to watch the official game animation for the 2023 season: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zpflsYc4PA

Prototyping 

A big part of our first week was spent prototyping various robot mechanics to complete set tasks within the game. A major focus followed how to pick up each game piece and the different orientations that would present. We experimented all over from claw intakes to roller intakes to figure out our big issue of how to orientate tipped cones.

While the prototyping has just begun it has given our new members a great opportunity to experience what the planning process is like. These prototypes have also helped us narrow down what our final mechanism will be like for our competition robot. The team will continue brainstorming within the next few weeks, but are already deciding on specific ideas, such as an angled elevator. While the ideas continue to grow, other aspects of the robot have made huge progress like our drivetrain. We can’t wait to show off the progress in the upcoming weeks!

Offseason Events Newsletter

Team 930 has been hard at work with preseason meetings starting up in the past few weeks! We have had a ton of new members for each one of our subteams (Electromechanical, Programming, Business, Strategy, FIRST Impact) and welcome anyone that is still interested to come to a meeting. Meetings are on Tuesday and Thursday from 6:30 - 9:00 PM in Room 42 in Mukwonago High School.

Following the FIRST Championship in Houston, our CAD team immediately began designing our new robot, 9930, for the summer and fall off-season. Our summer would be action-packed filled with outreach events along with off-season competitions. 

Our first off-season event was the Lakeshore Offseason Invitational. This would be the first offseason event for our team members along with the first event without our 2022 seniors. This event ultimately proved to be a success as the team ended up winning the event with our alliance partners 6574 Ferradermis and 7768 Iron Hill Automations. This event was a big kickoff for what was to come for Team 930’s exciting offseason. 

Team 930 also gained the inspiration in the Spring to hold the first annual Mukwonago Robotics Offseason Competition or MROC. The day prior, a team social was held along with numerous unique workshops for any FRC team to develop and improve their own team. The next day, 20 teams from across the Midwest attended the event for an action packed day of competition. Team 930 also held a donation drive for food pantries across Wisconsin and had over 17 backpacks and bins of school supplies donated. The team was also proud to have two news stations come and provide coverage of our event! Our own team ended up as finalists at MROC with our off-season robot, 9930. We congratulate teams 6574 Ferradermis, 2202 BEAST Robotics, and 1792 Round Table Robotics for winning the event. We also thank all of our sponsors for the event which can be found here. With MROC being a success, we cannot wait until next year's event with more teams! 

Our most recent off-season event that we attended was Indy RAGE, an event that promotes women in STEM. For the event, the drive team and pit were all girls encouraging hands-on learning for all girls at the event. Many of the girls on Team 930 were able to participate in the event, creating an exciting and action-filled day. After being ranked 2nd overall at the event, the team was chosen by the first-ranked team to be on the first alliance. Moving into single elimination playoffs, we progressed from semi-finals to finals, ultimately winning the event. We are proud of all of the girls on the team that put their full effort into the event and everyone on the team that came to support!

This weekend, Team 930 will attend its final off-season competition, Roboteer Rumble in Tremont, IL. The team has many of its new team members in attendance for the event, providing a learning experience for everyone involved. We are excited about the upcoming event and cannot wait to see all the teams there!

Off-Season Projects

With our end-of season banquet recently coming to a close, Team 930 has been working towards developing and promoting our offseason projects! Our most upcoming event is an Open House for members of the community. We will be hosting the event on June 2nd from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM. All families are welcome to tour our workspace and look at our 2022 season robot. All tours will be led by our very own students eager to spread robotics and innovation to all. FIRST Lego League Team 31979 T.I.F.I.D.I will also be present at the event promoting the FLL program and showing off their work from the 2021 season! 

A new initiative created by Team 930 is hosting an off-season event called the Mukwonago Robotics Offseason Competition, or MROC, that is being hosted from July 23rd to July 24th. Teams from across the Midwest are invited to Wisconsin’s premiere offseason robotics event. To sign up, check out MROC on our website here. The team will also be hosting seminars for teams attending MROC to spread STEM and development across FRC. These seminars will be about a variety of topics including outreach, programming tips, and mechanical lessons.

Following the success of Team 930’s LEGO Summer Camp the year prior, the team has been eager to engage with more students across in STEM. This year, the team has created two unique LEGO Summer Camp sessions. The first week of our Summer Camp will be the Introductory Camp, hosted from August 1st through 5th and our second week of summer camp will be the Advanced Camp from August 8th through 12th. The camp is for students from 4th grade to 8th grade and anyone interested in STEM or LEGO SPIKE Robots. If you or anyone you know that would be interested in attending the camp, check out our website here!

Seven Rivers Regional Recap

After a successful and an exciting Seven Rivers Regional in La Crosse, Wisconsin, we have reached the end of our competition season! We've persevered for the past three months through the challenges and obstacles of the 2022 Rapid React game to have a rewarding competition season.

Just two days after the Wisconsin Regional, the team confidently headed to the Seven Rivers Regional in La Crosse, Wisconsin. The tireless work team members put into our robot “Benedict Cargohub” allowed the cargo shooter and climber both to work flawlessly. We finished qualifications ranked 4th out of 46 teams, and were the first pick of the #1 alliance. After cruising through playoffs with our alliance partners teams #2451 and #8024, we ultimately fell to the #2 alliance in the finals. However, we didn't walk away empty handed; because of the dedication of the programming subteam, the team earned the Autonomous Award, recognizing the outstanding performance of the robot's autonomous functions. With this addition of this award to our collection, we now join an elite group of less than 70 teams that have won all 6 robot performance awards. 

On top of that, in recognition of her continuous passion and work in FIRST and the community, our program manager, Abby E, won the Dean's List Finalist Award at the Wisconsin Regional and was invited to the world championship in Houston, later this month. We wish her luck as she competes alongside hundreds of other exemplary students for the coveted Dean’s List Award in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  

Thank you to members, mentors, sponsors, parents, and everyone who helped make this season possible and successful! From outreach events and the game reveal, to the mid-season robot design changes and amazing competitions, we've had a spectacular season and are so grateful for these incredible experiences. As this competition season comes to a close, there's no slowing us down as we head straight into our off season outreach events. Stay tuned for information and announcements on our upcoming plans, and thank you again for a great season!

Duluth Recap and Wisconsin Regional Updates

The Northern Lights Regional was a fantastic first showing for Team 930! We ranked 6th overall and capped off the weekend by winning the Innovation in Control Award for our windmill climber design. However, there was no lack of obstacles to overcome along the way. The first day of the event brought with it endgame issues, and the second day of competition brought to light some issues with our intake and Cargo indexer. With these issues fixed by the third day of competition, we were a force to be reckoned with, captaining the 4th seeded alliance and ending the event as Semi-Finalists. 

To make the most of each competition, our team takes a step back and reviews our performance after the event. We categorize aspects of the competition as strengths (pluses) or opportunities for improvement (deltas). After going through this process as a team, we decided our catapult design for scoring cargo wasn’t going to be the most effective in the long run. The next two weeks will be a true test of our adversity as we are planning to completely redesign our cargo shooting mechanism: switching from a catapult design to a two-wheeled shooter.

As we look forward to our next competition, we’re excited to announce the Wisconsin Regional is now open to spectators! Come see Team 930 compete live at the UW Panther Arena on March 25th and 26th. We’ll be competing alongside 43 other local teams for the title of Wisconsin Regional Champions and a ticket to the World Championship in Houston. Each event is the culmination of all of our hard work and the support of our partners, and we’re proud to be able to put it on display at our home regional.

Week 6 & Sussex Mini-Regional

We’ve spent the past two weeks putting the finishing touches on our Week One Robot. After our great success at the Sussex Mini-regional, we're preparing for our first competition of this season: Northern Lights Regional in Duluth!

At the Sussex Scrimmage on the 20th we practiced navigating a regulation sized competition field with other teams, as well as showcased our Endgame climb. By the end of the scrimmage, we were consistently scoring 31 to 33 points per match independently. At week 0 competitions, the average alliance was scoring 32 to 34 points. We are working to keep up that momentum and only getting better as our Duluth competition approaches.

All build season we have been working towards the Autonomous Award for our autonomous functions, such as our Endgame and Autonomous Period,  the Entrepreneurship Award for organization and business aspects of the team, and Engineering Inspiration Award for our efforts in community outreach. We recently presented our submissions for these awards and attended our virtual judging period to show off our accomplishments to judges and hopefully be recognized for our season’s achievements and hard work! 

With Duluth only 4 days away, the team is in full swing to finalize our robot before our first competition! We will be posting regularly before and during our competition, so be sure to check out our Instagram and Facebook page for updates and links to watch our matches! Thank you to sponsors, mentors, coaches, and everyone who contributed for all of their hard work and dedication. None of this would be possible with them, and we're excited heading into an awesome competition season!

Week 4 & 5 Update

We just completed Week 5 and are working our ways towards competing in Sussex Scrimmage on February 20th! Within the past two weeks we have been aiming to complete and move towards testing our Week 1 competition robot. 

Following Week 3, members of the Electromechanical subteam have been perfecting the robot. The Cargo catapult was remade to fine-tune the geometry of the trajectory, and we reinforced the climbing aspect of the robot and added some new pneumatics. With the Week 1 competition robot completed with testing underway, the team works to start constructing our Week 4 and 5 competition robot.

The Programming subteam hosted their first Bear Bytes event, where we introduced ourselves and met the other teams participating! Bear Bytes is a discord server that allows FRC teams to collaborate and help each other with programming related projects and questions. We also completed the shuffleboard, worked on 3D/color tracking balls for aiming, and polishing the autonomous functions.

This week, members are finishing up multiple essays and award submissions. The team decided to nominate our outstanding mentor Matt C. for the Woodie Flowers Award for all his dedication and nominated team members Abigail E. and Ryder B. for Dean's List to recognize their incredible work and commitment to the team. In addition to the individual awards, we're competing for the Entrepreneurship Award, submitting an essay that highlights the organizational, sustainability, and outreach aspects of the team, as well as the Engineering Inspiration Award to showcase the effort we've put into outreach and spreading STEM awareness through events and marketing. 

The Strategy subteam finished the Scouting App which organizes data to track other teams during competition and to create powerful alliances. The Pit Scouting App tracks physical robot attributes and analyzes them while the Match Scouting database relates them to robot performance. In the next week, we’ll be working on scouter preparedness training so we’re ready for our first min-competition next Sunday!

Week 2 & 3 Update

Our team finished week 3 of the build season with great progress on our robot! We’ve been working tirelessly through the past few weeks and are continuing to develop a complete competition robot, ready for the upcoming Northern Lights Competition in Duluth, MN on March 3rd.

Electromechanical

One of our targets for Week 1 was to have a drivable robot by the end of the week. After accomplishing this goal with a preliminary drivetrain, members of CAD began to develop the Drivetrain mapping out the electrical control system layout. Being at the heart of our robot’s functionality, getting this part of our robot operational as soon as possible was key. The CAD team was able to assemble and finish the Drivetrain which allowed the Programming subteam to code paths to move. We also held interviews and tryouts for our competition Drive Team which were decided in Week 3. 

Cargo Catapult

In addition to the strides we’ve made with our drivetrain, our Electromechanical subteam continued designing and prototyping a launching mechanism. After measurably testing a variety of designs, the entire team ultimately decided to focus on a catapult shooting mechanism over a wheeled shooter. 

Endgame Climber

We also held a team vote to decide which design to continue exploring for the endgame climbing mechanism. We decided to focus on a “windmill” design and immediately started developing parts for it. Members of the Electromechanical subteam assembled “legs” that allow other pieces to be attached for our endgame. We then attached the “arms” that grasp each rung of the hangar and will be testing this design throughout Week 4.

Programming

With the general design of the robot completed, Programming has been laying the groundwork for each of the subsystems’ code functions. The catapult team finished an auto-aiming system for use in scoring game elements. Cameras on our robot can identify targets on the Hub and position the robot automatically to accurately shoot Cargo, as well as differentiate between the cargo colors. Additionally, our autonomous subteam has been planning different paths to score the most points during the beginning of each match, and the climber team has been programming an automatic climb sequence to control our windmill design during the endgame. 

BEAR Bytes

The programming subteam on Team 930 has recently created a Discord server called BEAR Bytes! BEAR Bytes allows other teams from across the nation to communicate with each other and ask or answer programming-related questions. Questions can be easily answered by team members and mentors on the server. Programming members are holding the first event for BEAR Bytes on February 6th, 2022! If you are interested in joining the server, email team930@gmail.com. 

Business

The Business team has made substantial progress over the past 2 weeks, organizing finances, completing multiple team documents, and making significant developments on the Team 930 2022 Business Plan.  During the past two weeks, two documents were revised in order for the team to run more efficiently and smoothly. The updates to our Student Handbook allow for students and parents to learn and understand the guidelines and expectations of Team 930 members. The second document we’ve updated for the 2022 season was our Brand Standard Document. This document explains all of the imagery standards on the team for apparel, marketing materials, and team appearances.

With our first competition only a month away, we are looking forward to having a fully-functional robot for our drivers by Week 4! 

Kickoff!

Last Saturday (January 8th) marked the kickoff of the FRC 2022 Rapid React season! We were introduced to the game and began strategizing what types of scoring objectives we wanted to accomplish.

Image Credit: FIRST

In the Rapid React game challenge, robots start in the center of the field and have to shoot oversized tennis balls (Cargo) into a two-tiered basket (The Hub) located in the center of the arena. Scoring Cargo in the “Lower Hub” is less risky, but worth half as many points as scoring Cargo in the “Upper Hub.” During the first 15 seconds of each match, robots operate autonomously from pre-programmed instructions, and Cargo scored in the Hub are worth double. After 15 seconds, robots are remotely controlled by their team for the remainder of the match.

In the last 30 seconds of the match, robots can climb on the four rungs of a monkey bar-like structure called the Hangar for additional points. The rungs are located at varying heights in each alliance’s Hangar, and the higher the rung that your robot climbs on, the more points your team scores at the end of the match.

Click here to watch the official game animation: https://youtu.be/LgniEjI9cCM

Prototyping

We prototyped multiple launching mechanisms to score Cargo in the Upper Hub. The two ideas we focused on testing a wheeled shooter and a catapult. We were able to reuse the shooter from our 2016 robot to test the aerodynamics of the Cargo. Students used our catapult prototype to evaluate the optimal trajectory of the Cargo when scoring.

Our intake prototyping focused on trapping potential bouncing Cargo on the field, allowing us to eliminate the need to wait for cargo to stop moving before we collect them. Previous years with similar game pieces enabled us to recycle intake mechanisms from previous years to test what types of wheels were best for loading Cargo into our robot.

After kickoff, we constructed a small scale version of the Hangar to test our prototypes. Our two main ideas revolved around a robot with multiple arms that reach out and grab individual bars, and a singular, windmill-like arm that spins around to grab rungs. Using these prototypes, we determined the value of each endgame prototype and how it would affect our robot’s design features as a whole.

With a productive Week 1 already wrapped up, we’ve hit the ground running and are aiming to have a drivable robot by the end of Week 2!

Roboteer Rumble

At 3am on Saturday the 23rd, we gathered to bring our robot to it’s final outing of 2021; Roboteer Rumble in Tremont, Illinois. This offseason was a tremendous opportunity to expose our incoming rookies to the challenges of FRC competition. We were able to showcase improvements made over the course of the season which led to us being picked 3rd overall in playoff draft. A 3rd place finish overall was a great retirement sendoff for our 2021 Season Robot, Polaris.

2022 Rapid React

We’re excited for the challenges the upcoming season, Rapid React, has in store for our team. Team 930 is actively preparing for Kickoff on January 8th when we will learn the specifics of the new game. Check out the teaser for the 2022 game below:

FIRST LEGO League

Team 930 has been actively developing a new FIRST LEGO League program in the Mukwonago area. We created 4 new FLL teams, and Team 930 students volunteer to mentor the elementary-aged members. Each of these teams will compete this fall at regional competitions, showcasing their project, robot, and teamwork skills. It’s exciting to see future Team 930 members already hard at work!

Team 930 Celebrates 20 Years! Robot update!

Our First Year

Established during the 2001 FIRST Robotics Competition Season, Team 930 has certainly come a long way. One of our former teammates recently sent us this clip from CBS 58 News from our first year. Click on the image below to see our 2001 bot in action!

Rotary Club Demo

The team hosted the Mukwonago Rotary Club last Thursday at the High School. Representatives from the team discussed the robot design in addition to explaining what the robotics team means to them. Thank you to the Rotary club for once again supporting Team 930 as one of our sponsors!

Nathan, our Programming Lead, explains how the vision tracking system was programmed on the bot.

SWENext

SWEBears is the Mukwonago Chapter of the Society of Women Engineers youth program (SWENext) hosted by Team 930. SWEBears is a group dedicated to working with young women to explore their passion for STEM and provide guidance on what career paths are available. The group will have opportunities to speak with other women who currently work in the field as well as engage with local companies and colleges. If you know a student that is interested in becoming a part of SWEBears, please email team930@gmail.com for more information.

SCRATCH & WIN

As part of our numerous outreach programs, our programming team is running a virtual introduction to programming class aimed at students grades 4th - 6th. Not only does this class give younger students a head start into the world of programming using a system called “Scratch”, but it also introduces those students to Team 930 to help foster strong team membership in the future. We have 25 students enrolled, and the first meeting was a huge success! We look forward to hosting more outreach events like this in the future.

Ed, one of our programming team students instructs our first Scratch & Win class

Robot Updates

Meet our 2021 robot, Polaris!

Our team has put a huge emphasis on our vision tracking system this season. We learned a lot from 2020 even though the season was cut short, and it allowed us to develop a really impressive model based shooter. This will allow our turret to find the target and accurately gauge distance and angle to put the ball on target with precision and accuracy with limited input from the drive team. We’re really excited to refine this system over the next few weeks in preparation for our competition submissions.

Our bot performing tests for the limelight vision based tracking system. Notice how well it tracks the goal even when the bot is in motion.

Our electromechanical and programming teams have done a fantastic job adapting the swerve drivetrain to our existing bot chassis. We can already see a massive increase in agility over 2020. This combined with the additional time our drive team has had at the controls to practice and Polaris is looking like a winner!

The new swerve drivetrain is putting both our bot AND our drive team to the test!

Mid-Season Build Update

Click to watch a time-lapse of the team assembling our robot!

The team has been hard at work preparing our robot for the new challenges that were announced during the kickoff. We have made some significant modifications to our existing design to account for this year’s demand for more speed, more agility, and more accuracy than ever before. Below is a quick summary of what the team has been working on the past few weeks.

DRIVETRAIN

Dominick, our Electro-Mechanical team lead, builds one of the serve assemblies.

One of the most ambitious changes we are making to drastically increase our robot’s agility is our transition from an 8 wheel TANK drivetrain to a 4 wheel SWERVE drivetrain. In a swerve style drivetrain, all 4 wheels will propel the robot and each can rotate independently to provide on-demand 360 degree motion. This presents a unique challenge to our design and fabrication teams in addition to our programmers as we have not used this type of drivetrain before. Everything we learn this year can be used in future bots for years to come. We are so close to being able to put the wheels on the ground and start driving it around to truly get a feel for how responsive our robot will be.

ROBOT HEIGHT

Our robot on risers preparing for some mechanical tests.

Our original design had a very tall robot that would excel at shooting over the top of defenders from any position on the field. One challenge we experienced with a robot that tall is a very high center of gravity which can cause the robot to rock and tip during aggressive maneuvers. We knew right away that this was going to need to change if we wanted to compete with the best in the 2021 season agility based trials. The decision was made to lower the height of the main tower by 12 inches. We were able to do this without compromising the design of our shooter or intake. The climbing assembly was also removed as it is not needed for these challenges. All in all the CoG of the bot has been brought much closer to the ground which will help to optimize performance.

GAME DESIGN CHALLENGE

Ryder and Aiden present their game design concept to the rest of the team.

The Game Design Team has been working hard to bring their concepts from imagination to reality. Coming up with a completely unique idea is a difficult challenge. With the March deadline on the horizon they have been in high gear hashing out the details and have started to bring their game field to life via CAD. We look forward to seeing what the final product looks like in the coming weeks!

Stay tuned for more updates!

The 2021 Season is Here!

This past Saturday, a masked up and socially distanced Team 930 gathered in the Mukwonago High School commons to tune in to the FIRST live stream with other teams around the world to see what the 2021 season had in store for us. We had already known the 2020 Infinite Recharge game would make it’s appearance again in 2021 due to the number of teams that were unable to participate last year due to the COVID lockdowns. During the kickoff stream, we finally learned how FIRST planned on adapting the competition to allow for teams to compete even if they are not allowed to attend competitions due to travel restrictions. 3 new competitions have been introduced this year, and Team 930 is excited to dive into two of them.

• Game Design Challenge
  FIRST has challenged teams to design their own FIRST Robotics Competition season. This challenge goes beyond just giving suggestions. Teams will need to thoroughly think out their ideas and create a detailed pitch which will be submitted to judges. Winning game designs will advance to additional rounds of judging with teams able to pitch the best designs directly to the lead game designers at FIRST HQ and elements of their game may be used in future seasons.

• Infinite Recharge At-Home
  The agility, accuracy, and speed of the robot in both autonomous and teleop (driver controlled) mode will be put to the test by a series of 5 challenges that we can complete right here at the high school. Unlike prior years, each challenge will pit us against a unique group of up to 30 teams from around the world.

An example of one of the speed and agility teleop challenges.

The team has jumped into action making significant changes to our robot based on its performance in 2020. We are excited to build on what we learned so we can continue to compete at a high level. Stay tuned to future newsletters to see updates on how the team is progressing!

Happy 9/30! Join Us!

Today is 9/30 and we wanted to take today to say TEAM 930 IS STILL HERE and still promoting STEM! The team has been meeting virtually over the summer due to COVID restrictions and have been working on projects in preparation for the 2021 season.

No doubt the 2021 competitive season will look a lot different than we are used to because of the pandemic, but we are still committed to our mission to create a fun and exciting environment to foster and promote skill growth in STEM related fields. We will be following all Mukwonago High School COVID-19 guidelines to ensure that our team stays safe and healthy.

If you, or someone you know, are a student that is interested in joining Team 930 we will be having our NEW STUDENT RECRUITMENT MEETINGS on October 13th, 15th, 20th, and 22nd. We are requiring that any student wanting to join the team for 2020-2021 attend at least one of these meetings so they can talk with current team members and mentors. If you are interested in participating, fill out the form at team930.com/member-application or send an email to team930@gmail.com.

We also are always looking for more mentors to join in on the action and help educate future STEM leaders! If you are interested in learning more, fill out the form at team930.com/mentor-application or send an email to team930@gmail.com.

We are excited to see what the 2021 season has in store for Team 930. Stay tuned for more information about the season in future newsletters!

COVID-19 and the 2020 season

With all of the recent talk about COVID-19 in the news lately, FIRST has made the decision to suspend the 2020 FIRST Robotics Competition. We are still processing the shock and disappointment of losing the opportunity to compete with the robot we worked so hard on, but we will look forward to planning future events with our sponsors and the community to continue to spread the core values of FIRST and generate interest in STEM. We are extremely grateful to our sponsors, mentors, parents, and members for all of the hard work and support.

See below for the official statement from FIRST:

Dear friends, colleagues & partners,

It is with deep disappointment that I share an update on the immediate suspension of the current FIRST season and the cancellation of both Championship events. This decision has been made based on guidance from the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and state and local health officials, as well as the declaration of states of emergency across many states/countries, the ever-expanding travel restrictions for schools, and in light of developments over the past 24 hours.  The health and safety of our community is our top priority, so we have decided to suspend all season play across all Programs worldwide, effective immediately, including the cancellation of both FIRST Championship events. Please know that FIRST Championship registration fees will be refunded.

This difficult decision was grounded in FIRST’s commitment to put the health and safety of our community above all else. During this challenging time, we have been working closely with our program delivery partners (PDPs) and event organizers around the world to navigate and mitigate the risks to our community due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). As a result, many of our events in the United States and around the world have been canceled or postponed, including more than half of all future FIRST Robotics Competition events. We acknowledge and appreciate the thousands of teams, parents, mentors, coaches and volunteers who have poured their hearts and souls into this season, and we share your disappointment.

The mission of FIRST has always been to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders and innovators, and we continue to be deeply committed to this mission. We know that you will have questions, and we will provide answers in the following days and weeks as we navigate what has been an unprecedented time.

Sincerely,

Larry Cohen, President of FIRST

Midwest Regional Recap

Team 930 arrived in Chicago, Illinois last week for the Midwest Regional. After a set of practice matches the day before we began competing in the Qualification matches on Friday. We started off strong by winning 4 our of 6 matches but noticed there were some issues with how our limelight was tracking the target causing a lot of our shots to land just outside of the outer port forcing our drive team to adapt on the fly. We tried our best against tough matchups, but ended up with a record of 4-4 at the end of Friday with 2 matches left to play on Saturday before Elimination Matches began. 

Unfortunately, we had two very close matches against solid teams on Saturday and lost both of our matches, leaving us in 26th place for alliance selection. The qualification record might have not been what we strive for but we were optimistic as we still had one of the best robots on the field. During the draft we were chosen by Team 2451 Pwnage, the 3rd Seed Alliance captain, along with Team 5822 Wolfbyte. We lost both of our Quarterfinal Matches against a strong 6th Seed Alliance but learned a lot about what we need to change to better prepare for the next competition.

Attending the Midwest Regional was truly a great learning experience for every member on the team as we adjust to this season’s competition level and expectations. We know what issues we need to improve upon as well as how to iterate on those tasks.

More to come next week!

Our Drive Team Jerseys made their debut at the Midwest Regional. Looking great, team!

We're competing at the Midwest Regional!

D-0 is ready for competition!

The time has finally come to put our robot to the test. Everyone on Team 930 is doing their part to make sure the robot (and our drive team) is competition ready. Also, in the spirit of the Star Wars theme for this year, we decided to name our ‘droid’ D-0.

The Midwest Regional will be held at the Credit Union 1 Arena in Chicago from Thursday the 5th until Saturday the 7th. We will be giving updates on our Facebook page after each match so be sure to follow us there.

If you would like to watch the competition LIVE, you can find a link to the broadcast, schedule, and standings at The Blue Alliance website. The GameDay stream list should also include our Regional.

We are excited to see our supporters and fans in the stands sporting our new logo. If you are in town, feel free to stop by the pits and wish us luck!

Onward to Chicago!

Loading up all of our gear for Midwest. This brand new trailer was made possible by our fantastic sponsors!

Sussex Mini Regional and Open House

Our robot shoots at a very impressive rate.

The team working on the robot in the pit between matches.

Sussex Mini Regional

The 2020 competition season has begun! Our robot started off strong just last weekend with a powerful showing at the Sussex Mini-Regional. Though we finished building last Friday, our robot performed extremely well and was able to launch game pieces into the scoring port from across almost the entire field! 

By no means is the work finished - we’ve learned a lot about how we can improve the robot from our experience at Sussex. From here, we’ll work on our climber for extra points in our endgame, give as much time at the controls to our drive team for practice, and we’ll work on improvements to prevent any possible jams in the robot.

Connor showing off the practice drive train to local kids.

Open House

Our Open House on February 17th was also a tremendous success. Kids were able to see our robots from this year and our World Champion finalist ‘bot from last year, and even had the opportunity to drive our practice drivetrain. Some of our amazing sponsors even showed visitors their company products, like COAPT’s prosthetic hand. The Milwaukee Bomb Squad showed off the bomb-stand Team 930 designed and fabricated for them, too. Fantastic local Lego League teams also showed off their incredible work from their 2019-2020 season. The turnout was fantastic and we wanted to thank the community for coming to see us.

COAPT demonstrating their prosthetic hands.

The Brickbusters FIRST Lego League team demonstrating their robot on a Lego League playing field.

Rebranding

Finally, the business team here at Team 930 has been working diligently to revitalize our appearance. We are hard at work developing our branding guide and implement standardization. As our team changes and grows, our logo needs to keep up. We’re so proud to finally reveal our new logo!