Robotics Review Week 1

Kickoff!

As the saying goes, the early birds get the worms, so on January 6th, the Buchanan Bird Brains woke up nice and early to start off the 2024 FRC season. Like thousands of other FIRST® Robotics Competition teams, we gathered in our nest to watch this year’s exciting game: Crescendo. The game consists of two scoring locations (an ‘amp’ and ‘speaker’), a source to pick up game pieces known as notes, and a stage where robots can climb onto. Two alliances of three robots compete to score notes in the amps and speakers in the first 2 minutes and 10 seconds of the game. In the last twenty seconds, each alliance works together to climb into the Stage. Human players are even allowed to throw a note onto a ‘microphone’ to score additional points! After watching the game animation video and long hours of game manual discussions, the team is ready to take on this challenge!

F-IR (For Inspiration and Recognition)

As the season amps up, F-IR (our business branch) has been planning outreach initiatives for the year. Our outreach subgroup has been preparing for our annual G.E.M.S. (Girls and Guys in Engineering, Math, and Science) workshop and hosting children’s book readings all while spreading the message of STEM to youths in the Central Valley. Our finance subgroup has been writing grants to fundraise our team so we can continue our outreach and competition goals. Media has also been hard at work designing buttons and this year’s merch. 

The F-IR team has also been proactively working on this year’s Impact Award questions and brainstorming for the Impact Presentation to display our efforts and dedication to support our community. This year, the birds also designed a shirt in celebration of the team’s 20th anniversary! 

ST (Science and Technology)

To start, ST focused on brainstorming potential designs for our robot. CAD went straight to work, turning different ideas into digital designs. Fabrication and electronics began bringing these CAD ideas into life by creating three whole prototypes. Strategy and programming teamed up to work on creating a scouting app for the new season. After all the brainstorming and prototyping, the team has finally chosen a direction for this year’s game. We are excited to see what the following weeks have in store for us as we prepare ourselves for competition.