Marketing Materials

Today I attended Marketing Materials, which is a class that is part of Spring Training. The class was taught by the RoboLancers’ Assistant Coach, Mrs. Conrad, and Thomas Davidenko, a member of the RoboLancers. They were excellent teachers and because of them I learned a lot about Marketing.

In the class I learned all of the important aspects of Marketing such as finding sponsors for our team, how to impress potential sponsors, and various skills that will be needed in making the RoboLancers successful. I payed special attention on how the RoboLancers could impress potential sponsors. Mrs. Conrad gave us tips on how we could accomplish this task. One of the tips was having a good elevator pitch, which she told us was an important skill to have.

During the class Mrs. Conrad and Thomas decided to do a small activity and broke the class into small groups so we could practice on our elevator pitches together. We had to come up with a topic and had to impress Thomas and Mrs. Conrad on our topic in less than 30 seconds. I was in a group with Justin and Wendy. Our first topic, “Cat Sponsors” was suggested by Justin. He had been very excited about it.

“Cat sponsors! Cats will support our team! Black cats, White cats, Tabby cats, all cats will support the RoboLancers!”

I was too stunned at his enthusiasm to respond. However, Wendy wanted to change the topic to “Buy a cat” and we all decided to stick with that.

In the end of the class Mrs. Conrad told all of us an amusing story where when she was little she would practice her elevator pitch in front of the bathroom mirror. She then suggested that we all do that at home. I would do it, but I’m afraid that my parents will be wondering if there is something wrong with me.

My Experience at the Philly Science Festival

Yesterday the RoboLancers went to the Philly Science Festival to show off our FRC and FTC Robots and talk about STEM Education and FIRST Robotics. Our booth was placed across the Franklin Institute. We had to set up our booth from 7:45 A.M to 10:00 A.M. Right before the event officially started when there was no crowd we did practice drives with our robot on the closed off street.

As soon as the festival started a crowd formed around our booth as we demonstrated our robot. I was busy in the booth talking about the team, STEM, and FIRST. We decided to start an emailing list for people who were interested in starting a team or getting their children involved. I really hope we can get some new FIRST teams started in the city.

When I wasn’t at our booth I was busy looking at all the different booths. While walking around I found the Friere’s RoboDragons and SLA’s FRC team. My favorite booth was probably the booth where you could make homemade ice cream.

I hope that we can participate in the festival next so that we can help spark an interest about FIRST Robotics for some of the people who visited our booth.

(Photo: Rachelle Potente)

 

 

Philadelphia Science Festival

Arriving at the Robolancers booth at 7:30, I could feel the weather would shape out to be a great day for us. Hank arrived with the robots and booth supplies, and we started to unload everything from the car that was packed ever so meticulously in order to fit everything we needed. After the booth was all set up and more Robolancers started to show up we did some joy-riding with the FRC robot. This carried on till sectors started to arrive, then I was off to the FTC field.

The field was hectic at first, from connection issues to missing supplies to broken robots and impatient lines, Andy, Jonah and I had a lot in our hands. But after sorting everything out the day went smoothly… for a while at least. We were forced to settle with only one robot running to demo at a time to my much pleasure, Crimson was among them. Its late  but Crimson worked and unlike gold, we found out that it was quiet childproof.

It was a pleasure explaining the FIRST program and FTC to the interested parents as the kids drove around the field. In the end the line moved smoothly, both Crimson and Gold were being switched in and out of operation and everyone was happy. It’s amazing to see just how smart some of the kids were and interested in robotics.Overall, it was a great day, and hopefully we sparked an interest for some of the kids who visited us.

 

Chestnut Hill FRC Regional

Hi all, it has been a while since my last blog post.

The RoboLancers recently participated in the Springside Chestnut Hill FRC District competition on the 14th and 15th of March. I have previously been a part of the drive team for off-season events – Ramp Riot and Duel on the Delaware, however it was my first time being part of the drive team for an actual qualifying competition. My position was the coach of the drive team. This experience was exciting and a little stressful. Being able to strategize with other teams and being up front and watching the robots competing on the field was amazing. After this competition, I am very looking forward to the Lenape-Seneca regional this week. Hopefully the team will be able to yield better results this competition.

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Chestnut Hill District Competition

On March 14th and 15th the RoboLancers attended the FRC Chestnut Hill District Competition. In the previous year I was able to attend this competition, however, this year was my first time as a member of the pit crew. I had the opportunity to work on the mechanical aspects of the robot, repair various complications that had occurred with the robot, and prepared the robot to compete in the field.

Last year I was able to see the competition from a different perspective. I witnessed the different teams and robots compete out on the field and the illuminating spirt that was rendered through the teams. This year I was allowed to participate in the action that occurs behind the scenes. Pit crew was chaotic, everyone scampered to ready the robot for the matches. The mood was high paced and stressful. When in the pit, one is able to ultimately understand that the robot is never thoroughly complete.

Although our robot did not function to its full potential. I have to admit that being a part of the pit crew was one of the most extraordinary experiences I was able to be a part of. I am optimistic about the improvements that our team has decided to make on the robot and am excited and looking forward to attending next week’s Lenape-Seneca Regional Competition.

– Melissa

FRC Competition

On March 15th, we headed to Chestnut Hill for the FRC competition with our FRC counterpart of the team. Some of us had to carpool to get there, but when we got there, we were excited for the things to come. Our team worked hard for our robot, and the Robolancers had a great time interacting with other teams, from mascots to chatting during lunch and down time.

Our robot played defense with it’s speed as it tackled robots and denied points for the other team. However, we dropped to the lower ranks as other teams overcame us. Although we are not the best team, we are rapidly improving and even as we dropped down, we still saved face and cheered for the other Alliances and finalists.

Overall we had a great time together, and it was a great event. Together with our teammates, we cheered, laughed, and collected a ton of pins and badges. We won the Judges award, and so Callan, Stanley, and Etienne will be presenting for Chairman’s again next week at Lenape. We’ll be looking forward to things to come, and learning from our mistakes. Some of us are really good dancers too.

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FTC States Competition [Crimson Edition]

On 3/1/14, 40 Robolancers, 20 Crimson, 20 Gold, went to Millersville University to participate in the FTC competition.

When we first arrived there, we set down everything and were calm. However, when we actually saw other people’s robots, we were amazed at how creative and amazing their designs were.  One of the robots even shot out blocks, similar to a cannon. We couldn’t really compete with them, having rebuilt and changed our entire robot in about 2 weeks, but we did try anyway. We came 27th place out of 37 teams, which wasn’t too bad actually. Although our original idea was to have the robot spin the flag, and THEN hang, we ended up only spinning the flag due to a silly mistake that no one noticed until the competition was over.

One of the things that really amazed me and made me smile were the costumes other teams had. I thought our Rock ’em Sock ’em costumes were ridiculously creative, but then I saw dragon costumes, viking costumes, a gorilla costume, and even a giant banana costume as well.

I really loved the team spirit there. Moe (the team that has everything colored in an unbearably bright green) was the team that I thought really had the most team spirit. Not that we didn’t try to compete with them in team spirit, though. Throughout that entire competition, Gold was basically cheering “Red Alliance!” while Crimson always cheered for the opposite team.

Even though we didn’t win, it was still a lot of fun, and an enjoyable learning experience that we hope to pass onto future FTC members that may be interested in Robotics.

 

New RoboLancers Roundtable!

Read Here-RoboLancers Roundtable Volume VI – February 2014

Dear Sponsors, Donors, and Supporters:

This newsletter is dedicated to you because we want to share with you what you have so generously shared with us. By this newsletter, we want to bring to you a little bit of what it means to be a member of this amazing team. We want to fill you in on what we’re doing, provide some of our own personal stories, and share with you our many accomplishments.

As the competitions approach, we would like to cordially invite you to join us at these fun, educational events. Bring family and friends and join us at our two FRC regional qualifying events. The first event is at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy (500 W.Willow Grove Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19118) from March 14-15, 2014. The second event is at Lenape/Seneca High School (110 Carranza Road, Tabernacle, NJ 08088) from March 22-23, 2014. Don’t forget to wear crimson and gold, our team colors. We look forward to seeing you there!

In addition, both of our FTC teams will be advancing to the PA FTC Championship Tournament to be held at Millersville University (Millersville, PA 17551) on March 1, 2014. We also would like to invite you to come out and support us at that event as well.

In the meantime, please read more about how we have been preparing for the competitions by enjoying this edition of the RoboLancers’ Roundtable. We hope you enjoy reading about our learning, progress, and fun times, which without your support we would not be able to accomplish.

Happy Reading,

The RoboLancers