A Weekend of VEX

This past weekend Team 254's seven VEX teams were split between two tournaments, one in Modesto and one in Los Angeles. Teams 254 A, C, and F went down to the CSUN Los Angeles Regional, while Teams 254 B, D, E, and G went to the Central Valley Sack Attack Tournament in Modesto. 254F became an alliance captain at Northridge, and 254E became a captain in Modesto. Every one of our VEX teams reached the elimination rounds for a second consecutive tournament, a fact which every 254 member should be very proud of.

In Northridge, C and F played against each other in one of the division finals, with F moving on to the tournament finals:

In Modesto, 254G went on to win the tournament along with their alliance partners 5327A and 5327C! 254D also posted an outstanding score of 206 in Robot Skills, which currently puts them in a tie for 17th in the world.

Congrats to the success of all our VEX teams this weekend after putting in hundreds of hours of hard work and commitment! These were the last two tournaments planned for Team 254 to attend until the VEX World Championships in April. However, with the recent unveiling of a California State Championship Tournament in March, Team 254 will be reevaluating our future plans for the robotics team as a whole for the coming semester. Currently Teams 254 A, C, F, and G are qualified to attend the first annual California State Championships.

SIA Awards Dinner

Last Thursday night, Team 254 attended Semiconductor Industry Association’s 35th Annual Awards Dinner, where we met Dean Kamen, spoke about FIRST, and spread the message of STEM.

We were lucky enough to be invited to SIA’s 35th Award Dinner and Reception, where we talked about FIRST, STEM, and the Cheesy Poofs. The event was hosted at the Fairmont Hotel, and gathered many prominent people in the engineering community together. Dean Kamen, the founder of FIRST (and creator of the Segway) spoke, as well as our mentor, Travis Covington. Our drive team, Abhi and Chris, spoke about the more mechanical topics, while Nagy and I spoke about how the game works, how the team is run, and how we interact with sponsors. Overall, the night was a huge success, allowing the Poofs, Bellarmine, and FIRST to be exposed to an amazing set of people. It was a night that will definitely be remembered.

Members Avery Strand, Abhi Kumar, Chris Sides, Nagy Hakim

Mentors Travis Covington, Ann Roemer

Bellarmine VEX Results

Meanwhile, 254D was picked by the 5th seeded team, and 254F also got to pick a partner. This pushed 254B into a picking position, and they picked another 254 team, 254E, as their 1st partner and 254G as their second partner. Unfortunately, F and D had to face off in quarterfinals. F came out on top, so all teams except D got into semifinals.

In semifinals, the C/A alliance beat their opponents and moved forward, while the B/E/G alliance and F alliance were eliminated. C and A got to go to finals, squaring off against Oakland's 8000A and 8000B, who were allied with 6A. Things looked bleak when overheated VEXnet keys caused 5369 to lose connection in the first match, causing a loss. However, 254A pulled off an incredible comeback in the second match, descoring every point in our opponent's trough and leaving them only with floor tile goals, giving us the victory. 254C and 5369 then came together once more to beat the two 8000's in the third match, winning us the tournament.

It was an incredibly nail-biting finals round, and all members of the team, not just those on C and A, were extremely excited that 254 had taken back the Bellarmine title after losing it last year. All in all, it was an incredible weekend and an incredible comeback, and all of us are proud of our VEX teams.

San Ramon VEX Results

This Saturday, we had our first VEX tournament of the season at San Ramon. 6 of our teams (A-F) were present at the competition. Amazingly, all 6 of these teams got into elimination rounds. 3 of them were eliminated in quarterfinals, while the other 3 were eliminated in semifinals. So, while we did not win, we are proud of having gotten so many teams into elimination matches. Furthermore, the day provided several highlights. For instance, one qualification match saw 254F and 254E in the same alliance, and together they racked up an incredible score of 210 points. The video of this match is here:

//youtu.be/nVgzpia91Qo

Also, shortly thereafter, this happened:

That’s 2 of our teams, E and F, back to back on the top of the tournament ladder. Unfortunately, they later fell in the rankings but it was great while it lasted.

All 6 teams worked very hard at this tournament and did very well, if you weren’t there then please do congratulate them this week. We will now be looking forward to our next tournament, Bellarmine, which we are definitely aiming to win!

CalGames 2012

This past weekend Team 254 attended CalGames 2012 at Woodside High School, an off-season replay of the FRC game Rebound Rumble.

After 4 wins and 4 losses in qualification matches, 254 was the first alliance choice for the #1 seed, Team 971. Later joined by Team 766, the #1 alliance proceeded through the elimination matches, defeating the #8 alliance, #5 alliance, and the #2 alliance in 2 matches each.  This marks the fourth year in a row that Team 254 has been a champion at CalGames.

Thank you to all the team members, parents, mentors, and friends who represented Team 254 at CalGames!  We could not have done it without the hard work of all our students, including all of the scouts, pit crew, drive team, and more.  A special thanks to the volunteers and mentors who donated their time and energy to help Team 254 work smoothly throughout the competition. I hope all our members enjoyed their first taste of FRC this year, and are looking forward to a fantastic 2013 season!

Calgames – Happening Now

This weekend, Team 254 is competing in the 12th annual WRRF Calgames Offseason Tournament. Watch the webcast of the tournament here!

10/3 Whole team meeting and CalGames Info

At the team meeting today we went through a lot of information rather quickly, and especially a lot to do with CalGames. So here is a brief recap of all of the information from the team meeting:

VEX Captains have requested the number of CAD Licenses, and we can begin installing them on the team laptops tomorrow.

Scouting Leadership applications should be submitted to [email protected] no later than 11:59pm Wednesday Oct. 3rd

Bellarmine VEX Volunteer form is now online! If you are not associated with a VEX team or your captain says it is okay, you can fill out the form to be given a volunteer position. You can fulfill your outreach requirement by volunteering! And get a free T-shirt!

And a list of all the information to do with CalGames:

• CalGames is on Friday October 12th and Saturday October 13th at Woodside High school, 199 Churchill Ave. Woodside, CA 94062
• Friday begins at 3:30, closes at 8:00
• Saturday is 7:00am-5:30pm
• 8 students can fulfill half of their outreach requirement by signing up to volunteer Saturday night. Look to the signups page for more info
• Attendance is limited to 40 team members at a time, so RSVP on the signups page!
• One slot will fulfill a tournament requirement but everyone is encouraged to attend for as long as they are able
• Attendance will be taken at the beginning and at the end of each shift. This is how credit will be awarded. If you are present at time when your name is not on the list, then you will not be given credit for that shift
• Freshmen are required to attend CalGames. If this is problematic, contact Ms. Roemer immediately
• Friday is mainly for returning members, new members are not encouraged to attend
• Consent Forms must be signed and turned in to Ms. Roemer by Wednesday, October 10th. No Consent form means you will not be allowed to attend CalGames
• Rides will not be provided to or from Woodside. Please find your own means of transportation, including carpooling with other 254 members!
• Students who signed up for the CalGames food order should reimburse Ms. Roemer $7 before next Wednesday, October 10th.
• Food will be available at Woodside for those who did not use the sign up form; however, it is on a first come, first serve basis

image courtesy of: //wrrf.org//media.team254.com/CalGames-2012-Logo-FINAL.png

New Season Update

Already seven weeks into the start of the new school year, we have had many events, including workshops and team meetings, to kick off the new robotics season.

Our first mandatory meeting for the team was at the Introduction meeting, where all incoming freshmen, new members, and existing members were formally introduced to the leaders of Team 254 and students became familiar with the expectations for this new season. There was an outstanding attendance as over 130 interested participants registered for the team afterwards. We also held a parent meeting where we presented new information to parents and answered questions.

In the following week, we officially began the VEX season with our VEX Kickoff, where we introduced this year’s new game “Sack Attack” for those who have not seen it yet or were interested in participating in VEX this year. Jonathan Chang led the meeting and explained the design process each team must follow, along with safety regulations for Bellarmine’s new lab. New VEX teams were released and captains then led each sub-team to discuss game strategy and begin their brainstorming process.

Finally past the busy start of a new season, we smoothly transitioned into the Zero Robotics Kickoff led by Richard Lin, different workshops including Graphic design led by Kyle Schnoor and PR/Marketing led by Avery Strand, and VEX builds. Each VEX team presented their team’s robot design to the mentors, who gave their critique to each team, and teams now in the process of building each robot according to their CAD drawings. We have just begun registering teams for VEX tournaments, the first one already starting in October at San Ramon.

The mentors, leaders, and sub-captains are all looking forward to another great VEX season this year to follow up with last year’s excellent performance at the World Championships. As a reminder, you should still check the calendar often for meetings and lookout for upcoming workshops that interest you.

Media Week of September 3rd

The new 2012 team sweatshirt is moving closer to being completed, we have a good design we are running with and it looks like it’ll be done soon. We have our first Graphic Design meeting of the season after the whole team meeting on Wednesday. It will be located in the the new robotics lab (formerly the wrestling building). I hope to see many of you there to learn about Graphic Design and Animation.

FRC Pre-Season Planning

As the robotics school year ramps up the FRC team is also planning for next season. We will be having a planning meeting in the near future so check your emails for any upcoming event. This meeting will discuss any issues we had last season and possible solutions to them for the season to come. We will also discuss possible alternative projects for FRC Fridays to complete prior to next season.

Graphic Design Meetings

The graphic design and animation meetings will be coming up starting next Wednesday, the 5th of September. I’m hoping to see a great turn out this year. It’ll be great if I can get more people coming to these. Remember, come to the Graphic Design Meetings, we have cookies.

VEX Tournament Meeting

With the VEX season set to start Thursday, we can now begin to plan for the Bellarmine VEX Tournament in November. The first parent and volunteer meeting will occur within the next few weeks. The number of volunteers we get from this first meeting will determine how smoothly the ride will be all the way into November.

Shockwave Update

There was some difficulty using shockwave today. The connections were working, but the motors would not turn. A group of us troubleshooted this through the afternoon, but to no avail. Hopefully we can get it back up and runnning soon.

PR Update

Alright guys, here’s the PR update of the week. We’ve now had our two introductory meetings for the freshmen and returning members, and are ecstatic about the results. Seventy five freshmen signed up! Add that to our returning members and we’re going to have a great time this year. Over the next three days, we’re going to have VEX workshops, as well as the first parent meeting in awhile, so make sure you attend those! The VEX workshops are going to be amazingly helpful, and the parent meeting is a great way to stay in the loop. Remember to check your emails and the blog! Communication is key.

Mandatory Events This Week

A couple reminders:

• All students are required to attend the introductory meeting. They are on August 22nd and 23rd (come to one OR the other) from 3:00 to 4:00, in Sobrato Theater. These are mandatory meetings, as announced in the previous informational email.
• Vex Kickoff (similar to FRC kickoff, but for VEX) is also a required event. It is on August 30th from 3:00 – 5:00. Location TBD.
• Whole Team Meetings are now every Wednesdays afterschool in Andrade, starting on the 29th. Please look at the calendar for more information.
• Please make sure your account works on the website (BOTH parents and students).
• Parent Meeting on August 28th at 7:00 in Sobrato.

FRC Fridays

As the new school year begins, all aspects of the Bellarmine Robotics Team go into full bloom. Along side other major subjects such as Finance, VEX, Graphic Design, and of course FRC. Soon we will be establishing FRC Fridays as a way for both new and old members to be introduced into FRC in the offseason and get involved in the program. In our near future we will be finishing upgrades designed throughout the summer with Shockwave and will continue on to other projects needing to be finished prior to the beginning of the FRC season. Stay tuned for updates and upcoming times and locations for FRC Fridays.

VEX Prototyping Session

This past Wednesday several of our VEX leaders, both captains and sub-captains, met in the old VEX lab for a prototyping session. The session was extremely productive; the VEX leaders each tried different approaches to intaking game objects, trying different construction methods to see what worked and what did not. The assigned captain/sub-captain pairs worked together to give each other inspiration and correct each others’ mistakes. While doing this, they took careful notes of what they tested, giving them something to work with when build starts as well as creating a foundation for the Design Notebooks which are so important for awards.

FRC Offseason Events

With the robotics season about to begin, Team 254 is set to attend two off season FRC tournaments for the 2012 game Rebound Rumble. Over the next few weeks we will begin preparing and packing for CalGames 2012, which is scheduled to begin October 12th. As the only local FRC tournament in the fall, every team member is expected to attend to show their support for the Cheesy Poofs. After CalGames, Team 254 will travel down to Madera for another annual off season tournament, Madtown Throwdown.  In addition to FRC, a planning meeting for the annual Bellarmine VEX Tournament will happen within the next few weeks.

Upcoming Intro Meetings

There are two upcoming meetings introducing 254 robotics to potential recruits on the following days:

• Wednesday August 22nd
• Thursday August 23rd

At these meetings we will showcase our 2011-2012 basketball shooting robot Skyfire as well as give important information about the team.

Website redesign

As you may have noticed, the Team 254 website has been redesigned significantly. We’ve been working hard on updating it to modern web design standards, improving content, and reorganizing the site to be more logical. We hope that users find the site easier to navigate and more visually pleasing. The team member portal has also been re-created and should be easier to navigate.

We’ve imported most users from the old website, so we recommend trying to log in with your same credentials. If you’re having trouble logging in and cannot request a new password, contact stephen.

We heavily utilized Twitter Bootstrap in the redesign, so the site should display consistently across all modern web browsers. Behind the scenes, we’re running the latest version of WordPress. If you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to contact us.