We went to the Zoo Boo again! This time, some of our tasks included watching over a booth that involved experimenting with what animals eat and to teach kids about the diet of animals. The other booth was an arts and crafts booth where we taught kids how to make a bat using a tube, string, construction paper, and tape. This was a very exciting time and a lot of fun to do! We hope to be able to do it again next year.
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As a team, today we volunteered at the Zoo Boo! Our tasks included pumpkin carving and manning the booths to pass out candy to kids. It was overall a very fun and exciting experience, and our team is going again on October 26th. The Zoo Boo is open to the community, so if any of our great sponsors, mentors, or supporters would like to attend, our team encourages and supports the Zoo! - Our team is returning home from the Detroit World Championships to pack up the robot for the last time of this season. We spent the weekend in Detroit with 400 other teams from across the globe as we battled it out to determine the champions. We are so happy for Michigan teams 2767 from Kalamazoo and 27 from Clarkston who won the world championship with their alliance. We applaud our drive team and pit crew for making our robot do the best if its abilities which led us to rank 53 in our division, the Daly field. The scouts in the stands played a vital role in helping our team improve throughout the event as well as providing data for our team to focus our goals for next year. Though we didn't make it very far competition was a lot of fun and it was a great experience for everyone. We were able to meet Governor Snyder in our pit as well as the Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. While we were there we also got the chance to participate in several seminars hosted by top teams in the country to improve our skills to help us with our upcoming season. These seminars included increasing female engagement on the team, student leadership, coding, and mechanics. We can't wait to see what they have learned when we meet next for our annual wrap up meeting. Also this weekend was the last time we got to spend with the seniors on our team, they have made a huge impact on Q Branch and will be missed dearly. Thank you to our mentors, sponsors, coaches, and parents for allowing us the opportunity to go to world's and providing us with a moment none of us will forget. It's been a wonderful season and we can't wait to see what next year brings with Destination: Deep Space!
Our program had a great weekend at SVSU. We were able to compete for Chairman's at the state level against many other very competitive programs. We also were recognized by Governor Snyder as one of the districts in the state who offers FIRST programs for students at all levels (K-12). This was a great honor and our captain Alanya Carr represented us well when accepting the certificate. Although our robot was not chosen in alliance selections to play in the afternoon we are very proud of all of our students including the scouters, the drive team, the mechanics team, and the chairmans team. Also, we are so thankful to our parents and championship sponsors who made the weekend a success. Thank you so much to the parents who helped feed the team and the sponsors who provided monetary funds for registration. Our team is very excited that for the first time in program history we have been invited to compete at the World Championship in Detroit April 25th - 28th. This is a first for our program and we will be competing with teams from all over the world. We can't wait to show the world This is How We Robot.  Team Captain Alayna Carr accepts a Certificate of Recognition from Governor Snyder for Lakeview's K-12 FIRST program.
Competition season has been full of ups and downs for our team. We started Week 1 at Gilbraltar (March 1st - 3rd) with some mechanical issues in the first few matches. This was resolved, only to lead us into new challenges with our grip on the power cubes and our intake being reliable. We did have some highlights like when we were able to fill the vault in match 36 (video below). Also, our team competed for the Chairman's award for the first time in team history. In the end, our team ended up ranked 23rd with record of 6-6-0. At this highly competitive event it was not enough for us to be chosen into the elimination rounds and we left with some disappointment and a lot of work ahead of us. We got our second chance Week 6 at Lakeview (April 5th - 7th). We went into this event as the home team and we were excited to improve. We were able to spend a lot of time on the practice field on Thursday and iron out some of our issues. We even got our climber attached, only to find out that it interfered with our elevator in an unpredicted way and we had to remove it. On Friday, we continued to find our niche in the event. By the end of the day we had spent a lot of time practicing on the far side of the field nulling the opponents switch. With some extra work in the pits on Friday, we were able to take care of our issues with the grip on the cube and the intake. By Saturday morning it was working very well. We also spent a lot of time working on our center switch auto and on Saturday we were able to reliably place the cube in auto. This led us to go into eliminations ranked 24th (6-8-0) with a reliable robot. We were chosen as the first pick on the 7th seeded alliance, and although we were unable to upset the #2 seeded alliance, we worked hard and continued to improve in every match. We will post a video of one of the Saturday matches when they become available. Our team did an amazing job during the event cheering not only for our team but other local teams and rookie teams. We were excited to see our mentee Team 7209 from Homer get picked as the 2nd pick on the #1 seed alliance and take home the blue banner! Our Chairman's team also got to present at Lakeview. This time they had more practice under their belt including feedback from two Chairman's teams 2337 and 4381. Also, they presented and practice to our sponsors at Musashi. We are so proud to share that this time they came out with the win! This is the most prestigious award in FIRST and really relies on documented growth and outreach throughout the last five years of the program. This award automatically qualifies our team for the State Championship in Saginaw (April 11th - 14th) where we will compete along side 159 other teams. We are so excited to compete there with the Chairman's team and our robot. This Is How We Robot.  Today we mainly focused on getting the last bits and pieces of preparation ready for events. We also rehearsed the way we will scout at our first competition in Gibraltar, and prepared ourselves for competition with driving practice. We also began making posters to show our spirit for our first competition of the year! It was very exciting and a good way to show our new members just how exciting competitions are. Everyone also received a packing list for competition, as well as room assignments for the hotel we will be staying at. We can’t wait to see and hang out with other teams! We also finished our buttons and worked very hard to make sure that other teams get one if they would like. -Alayna Robinson |
