Our team was started in 2011 by Mr. Brad Smith, one of our current mentors. Mr. Jestin VanScoyoc joined in as a mentor soon after. We are 21 people strong and we get new members every year. We are all hard working and many of us come up with game changing ideas. We always encourage our new members to contribute and join in on the fun.
In 2016, we created an FTC team in our middle school, and in 2017, we created an FLL team in our elementary school. We go down to mentor and help our younger teams. We are extremely excited that our influence is across all ages and that younger generations have the same interests as we do; to learn about technology and science.
In the past few years, we have emphasized the art, media, and business areas in our team, which has resulted in an increase in the number of students involved with robotics. By putting more of a focus on these areas, we have become a more diverse team and can provide more opportunities to our members than just robots. See more about these areas in the "Team Members" section.
We advertise our team by participating in school and community events, as well as hosting our own events. Our robots and students participate in parades, so we can show the community a small part of what we do. We are actively building a parade and football game robot. This robot will have a candy launcher that can be quickly switched out with a football shooter. It will be driven in parades and at football games to demonstrate our team's skills to our community.
We believe there is more to FIRST than competition. It is about ensuring each team and member gets as much out of the program as possible. This year alone we mentored four rookie teams (7160, 7109, 7155, 6963). We offer these teams advice and assistance whenever it's needed, as well as hosting rookie quick builds at the beginning of the season, where they come to our workspace and we help them get started. These teams have gone on to win Highest Rookie Seed and Outstanding Rookie award. 7160 even won Rookie All-Star award at the Michigan State Championship, which qualified them to compete in the world championship.
Our team is truly student powered. We have never had the assistance of any technical mentors, so our students are forced to learn new methods and techniques to build and program the robot on their own. When we decide to use a new chassis type or vision control, it is up to our members to put in their own time and effort to learn how these systems work. Being in this position allows us to gain a better understanding of what it is that we are learning, as well as a greater sense of the benefit of hard work.
The 2018 season has been our greatest season yet. The new leadership system has increased our efficiency tremendously, resulting in the robot being finished sooner than ever, thus giving our programmers plenty of time to perfect the autonomous code. At our week 6 event at Alpena, Michigan we were honored to win the Chairman's Award, which qualified us for the state competition for the first time ever. It was a truly amazing experience for our team. Although we did not make it to the elimination rounds, everyone went home satisfied that we had done the best we could.
In 2016, we created an FTC team in our middle school, and in 2017, we created an FLL team in our elementary school. We go down to mentor and help our younger teams. We are extremely excited that our influence is across all ages and that younger generations have the same interests as we do; to learn about technology and science.
In the past few years, we have emphasized the art, media, and business areas in our team, which has resulted in an increase in the number of students involved with robotics. By putting more of a focus on these areas, we have become a more diverse team and can provide more opportunities to our members than just robots. See more about these areas in the "Team Members" section.
We advertise our team by participating in school and community events, as well as hosting our own events. Our robots and students participate in parades, so we can show the community a small part of what we do. We are actively building a parade and football game robot. This robot will have a candy launcher that can be quickly switched out with a football shooter. It will be driven in parades and at football games to demonstrate our team's skills to our community.
We believe there is more to FIRST than competition. It is about ensuring each team and member gets as much out of the program as possible. This year alone we mentored four rookie teams (7160, 7109, 7155, 6963). We offer these teams advice and assistance whenever it's needed, as well as hosting rookie quick builds at the beginning of the season, where they come to our workspace and we help them get started. These teams have gone on to win Highest Rookie Seed and Outstanding Rookie award. 7160 even won Rookie All-Star award at the Michigan State Championship, which qualified them to compete in the world championship.
Our team is truly student powered. We have never had the assistance of any technical mentors, so our students are forced to learn new methods and techniques to build and program the robot on their own. When we decide to use a new chassis type or vision control, it is up to our members to put in their own time and effort to learn how these systems work. Being in this position allows us to gain a better understanding of what it is that we are learning, as well as a greater sense of the benefit of hard work.
The 2018 season has been our greatest season yet. The new leadership system has increased our efficiency tremendously, resulting in the robot being finished sooner than ever, thus giving our programmers plenty of time to perfect the autonomous code. At our week 6 event at Alpena, Michigan we were honored to win the Chairman's Award, which qualified us for the state competition for the first time ever. It was a truly amazing experience for our team. Although we did not make it to the elimination rounds, everyone went home satisfied that we had done the best we could.