RoboJawn 2023

RoboJawn 2023 took place this past Saturday at West Philadelphia High School. All 6 of our RoboLancers FTC teams put forth a strong showing at the event!

Playoffs

RoboLancers Crimson and RoboLancers Aubergine were both alliance captains. RoboLancers Gold and the Binary Bots, from Project HOME, joined RoboLancers Aubergine on the 4th alliance. RoboLancers Crimson selected RoboLancers Pumpkin and the Technabots, from Girls High. RoboLancers Cobalt joined Bodine Ambassadors, from Bodine High School, and To Be Determined, from Lancaster PA. RoboLancers Aubergine and RoboLancers Gold were event finalists defeating Alliance 1 in the semifinals.

Awards

The judges highlighted multiple RoboLancers teams in the awards portion of the event. RoboLancers Aubergine received the 2023 RoboJawn Champions Award. RoboLancers Gold received the Engineering Award, RoboLancers Pumpkin received the Portfolio Award, RoboLancers Aubergine was the Control Award runner-up, and RoboLancers Crimson was the Presentation Award runner-up. All of the RoboLancers put forth a strong showing in the judging room. RoboLancers Alum Michael Curry 275 was also honored as the 2023 Philadelphia FTC Volunteer of the Year.

Build Season Weekly Update (#3-4)

In the midst of week 3, the team continued to experiment on possible designs using CAD. During the week, they created various prototypes that could be used in the final design of the robot. Throughout week 4, members have been finalizing the designs to be used for the robot. Using CAD, the team has been perfecting all the different parts to be manufactured and assembled.

Blog post-Hat Tricks

On Saturday, December 1st, 2018, my brother and I came to Hatboro-Horsham high school, where Hat Tricks was being held, with donuts (to prevent any fatigue happening during Hat Tricks). I spent most of the morning waiting for the others to arrive and practicing with the presentation team. I later went to the pit to check on our robot, and then it was time for presentations. The rest of the presentation team and I were a bit nervous about presenting, but we managed to get through it. Once we finished, we went back to the pit to give our robot back to our teammates. Our team continued to fix problems on the robot until the competition began. Our matches against the other teams/alliances didn’t go so well due to the robot suddenly losing its wheels, getting stuck, and not turning on. But, we managed to be one of the semi-finalists. We didn’t get to the finals, but we gained new ideas on how to improve our robot. When the competition was finished, we packed our things and waited (totally not dancing while waiting) for the awards ceremony to start. During the awards ceremony, we didn’t gain any awards, which saddens me a little bit for our team.

-Tiffany Zheng

Hat Tricks

My experience in Hat Tricks was pretty stunning. When our half baked robot entered the field I was really mind-blown by the fact that our autonomous worked. Even though we almost defaced the crater.  The games showed how much we need to ameliorate our robot. The day was filled with copious amount of confusion, yet in between the layers of befuddling issues I had an ecstatic time using analytical reasoning to figure out new ways to solve the problems. The spot light moment of that day would definitely have been when our passive latch pulled us up and gave us the win. However, it was disheartening to see that even though we were placed 14 on the leader board we were overlooked by the other alliances. As depressing as that is at the end of the day it was jaw-dropping to see other robotics team in action. All we needed to know is that we were above average in 14 out of 30. Next time lets go for number one

-Dennis Lam

Programming Boot Camp

During our introduction to robotics, we were exposed to the fundamentals of programming. We learned the structure of Java (the programming language we use to code the robot) in this class. Our teachers were very social and fun to work with. We had to “program” Ramon (giving him commands in the form of code) to grab a marker and draw something on the board. The teachers’ personalities made the programming subgroup quite interesting. We did dreadful icebreakers but they made everyone feel cool; I heard about Six Flags, and all the other famous trips the Robolancers take; everybody seemed like they were chill and fun to work with.  

If you aren’t sure that you want to join programming, you should at least consider it, especially if you like mentoring and working with others who share common interests. If you like programming and teaching people new things, JOIN, JOIN, JOIN! You have the chance to meet new people and make new friends! Most importantly, you learn how to program, which could really help you in the long run.

Cyanni Wattley and Teagan Clark

My experiences with the Business team of the RoboLancers

At the end of Boot Camp, I chose to join the Business team because of the great experience I had with Business section of the Boot Camp. In the first week, I was awkward because I didn’t know anyone. We were given a task to develop a theme for the RoboLancers based on the topic of the FRC game this year. Throughout the process of making up a theme, I became familiar with the history of the Robolancers and the people in the team. We worked hard with each other to develop a theme and prepare for the presentation. Even though only three of us were there on the day of the presentation, I learned a lot and had a lot of fun.

In the Business team, we also had to do public speaking. I was shocked when I heard that we had to stand in front of the team and talked about a topic for 5 minutes. I was really bad at public speaking and I was really scared to talk in front of a large group of people. However, I tried my best and learned my mistakes.

Overall, I am having a great time in Business and I am learning a lot.