The robot is running again! The students voted to continue working on the robot once a week.  Check the schedule page to see when the meetings are.  Students also brainstormed possible fundraising ideas for during the summer. Our new objective that was discussed today is to make a dual frisbee launcher. The goal is to successfully build this robot to launch two frisbees at the same time into opposite ends of a crowd during a parade. Some ideas for the type of mechanisms we’re using to launch these frisbees have been drawn up. Throughout the next couple meetings our team will be designing and constructing this frisbee launcher to place on our previous robot that we used in the competition. Other teams were researching grants and fundraising opportunities. Let’s get this launcher built!

WOW!  We learned a lot!

The students that attended FIRST Robotics Competition at the US Cellular Arena on March 21st, 22nd, and 23rd  were outstanding.  For us, it was trial by match.  The students would work on the robot in between matches.  We would run the robot, learn something, and go back and work on it some more.  The students worked so hard, whether it was in the pits on the robot or in the stands scouting other robots, they were great!

As a rookie team,  Port PiraTech Team 4804, we were very happy just to compete.  We finished with a record of 3 and 7.  We finished ranked 47 out of 57 teams.  We did manage to beat our Cedarburg neighbors!  Most of the students walked away this weekend though, with an understanding that this competition is not about wins and losses but about learning and constantly improving.  Many of the students commented on how much they loved this competition and that they can’t wait for next year’s challenge already.

FIRST Robotics handed out different awards on Friday evening and Saturday evening.  On Friday, after a long hard day of working, the students were sitting in the stands cheering for other teams that had won awards, until the announcer got to the “Rookie Inspiration” award.  The “Rookie Inspiration” award is awarded to a rookie team that demonstrates outstanding effort in community outreach and recruiting students to engineering.  The announcer hinted at the winners when he said “..they will definitely want to come get this trophy to add to their treasure.”  The students literally jumped for joy.  When you get an award at an FRC Regional, the whole team goes down on the field and high fives the judges.  Each team member walked down from the stands and participated.  We were given two trophies for the award, one for the high school and one for main sponsor, Rockwell Automation.  The students also were given a peer award “Outstanding Rookie Award” from a team that has been competing for the last 10 years.

From a mentor perspective, I am so proud of our students.  They represented our school and our team with the utmost of integrity and perseverance all weekend.  They inspired me this weekend.  I had several mentors from other teams come up to me in the pit area and say that they couldn’t believe how hard working our students were.  The judges walking around couldn’t believe how many students we had on our team for a rookie team.  They said they were very impressed with our team.

There will be a very important debriefing meeting this Thursday from 6pm-8pm.  We are going to start improving for next year right away!

From Mr. Belling, Mr Volke and all the Mentors “Thanks students for your hard work and dedication!”

Check out the photos of the competition!

Hello again people who actually visit this site, we have more exciting news for you. Our climbing mechanism for our robot is nearly complete. The design team made the climbing mechanism in the C.A.D. assembly. If you haven’t already noticed, there is a new tab on our mainpage that thanks all sponsers to near date. Our open house took place, and all that didn’t attend should have, because other teams could have caught wind of our plan. And finally, that media team of ours has finally gotten the chance to upload our first podcast, made by Andrew, voiced by Andrew, and edited by Andrew.  That’s our basic layout of this week, so until the next, have a wonderful day.

WOW–Check out the new— PortPiratechPodcast!