Together we Brainstorm and Design
On January 5, Team 2056 gathered in the school library for the season kickoff and release of the FIRST Robotics 2020 Infinite Recharge game. Students, mentors, and parents spent the day studying, analyzing, and discussing the game manual. A solid understanding of the game is crucial to designing and building a great robot.
Rookies, mentors, veterans, and parents later continued to brainstorm ideas, define priorities, and debate the structural components of the robot. As the design process continued, SolidWorks files grew, and the robot began to take form digitally.
Building Field
Team 2056 spent the first few weeks of the season building a practice field in our robotics room at Orchard Park. Students worked alongside several volunteer mentors and teachers, learning the skills required in woodworking, structure design, construction, reading engineering drawings, teamwork, and communication. The practice field allows the engineering team to test, troubleshoot, resolve design issues, and fine-tune autonomous programming. The field also provides our drive team the opportunity to practice precision driving and teleoperated control of the robot.
A special thanks to The Home Depot (Centennial Parkway) and Robert Wells Photography for providing materials to build our practice field, and to all of the volunteers who lent their time and talents to guide students through the first stage of the build process!
Parts, Parts and More Parts
Materials arrived and parts were manufactured on the CNC Machine, lathes and mill. Many hands make light work, and when parts arrived from Westbrook and Barlow Manufacturing, the team was back in full gear, deburring, filing, and buffing. Our droid soon started to take form as mentors and students assembled hundreds of mechanical parts, electronics, and pneumatic components. Programmers worked tirelessly writing the code that would magically bring our 2056 Infinite Recharge robot to life.
Chairman’s and Scouting
Along with designing and building a robot, the Chairman’s team and Scouting team have been working behind the scenes preparing for their respective aspect of the competition. The Chairman’s team has been writing, preparing presentations, and creating video content. The team will present at District Events, and if successful, continue on to Championship events.
Scouting and strategy are huge parts of the team performance on and off the field. Students and mentors have been working on the scope and method of data to be recorded for each robot during each match at all of our events. Students are learning about the power of data and the usefulness of spreadsheets.
Infinite Recharge Competition Events
This season’s competition events are only weeks away and we can’t wait to reveal this year’s robot to our sponsors and fans! We invite you to come out to watch a match at the events below to witness first-hand the positive impact of your support. We know you’ll be inspired when you join the 2056 community and experience the energy and excitement of a FIRST Robotics Competition!
We are taking part in the following two FRC district events:
- March 19-21: University of Waterloo District Event
- April 3-5: McMaster University
Once we qualify, we’ll head to the:
- April 8-11: Ontario District Championship
- April 29-May 2: Detroit World Championship
Results, live streams, match video, and event information can be found on the Blue Alliance website.
Much gratitude to our sponsors, for making this experience possible for youth in the Orchard Park community through generous contributions and support of Team 2056.