BArlow RobAutics Blog
Saturday, May 25 2024
Welcome back to the BArlow RobAutics blog!
On May 21, our captains presented at the Board of Education meeting to show our gratitude as they graciously donated money to fund our team which has definitely helped us do as great as we did this year. Our captains talked about our accomplishments during the 2024 season, Crescendo, and about our robot, Chompy. The presentation went great, and we even got to drive and show off Chompy. We hope to see their continued support in the future!
A few days after the Board of Education meeting, we quickly needed to bring Chompy for another event, Barlow Palooza. Barlow Palooza is an event that was held on the 23rd of May that brings together the whole community of Easton and Redding. This event allows clubs and groups of students from JBHS to present to interested families and community members. We presented and showed off Chompy to spectators and incoming freshmen who we hope to see next year join our team. Barlow Palooza is one of the few chances we get to put our name out to the community in such a meaningful way so we’re forever grateful each year to have a spot in the event.
A quick note: We’re incredibly saddened to announce that our 2024 Robotics Summer Camp is canceled due to a variety of reasons for the summer of 2024. We hope to run future summer camps, but we simply cannot at the moment. Thank you to all who ever attended or supported one of our previous camps.
Meetings for this week will be Monday and Thursday, 6:00pm to 9:00pm.
Till next time,
BArlow RobAutics
FRC Team 4572
Saturday, May 11 2024
Welcome back to the BArlow RobAutics blog!
Improvement of our 2024 season robot, Chompy, continues on! We’ve repaired swerve modules on Chompy, tested out solutions to our note stuck on the ledge problem, found some of the best angles for shooting at amp and speaker, and we’ve set up parameters on Shuffleboard for Chompy. While we continue to improve Chompy, we are also furthering development of our summer camp robot. We have already nearly finished designing our summer camp game, and we’re just starting to create potential ideas for the robots that will be competing in the camp.
To celebrate our accomplishments for the 2024 season, our team will have a team banquet! The team banquet gives us a chance to come together one last time as an entire team to appreciate our robot, Chompy, and most importantly our hard work that we put in for the entire year, preseason and build season. The banquet is on May 19, 2024 at 1pm and will be held no matter the weather. A quick reminder that the team banquet is for MENTORS and STUDENTS ONLY. More details can be found on emails that were sent to mentors and parents. Thank you all for your incredible support and hard work that made 2024 a year to remember for our team.
Where is Wolcott? Invitational is a day-long event hosted by 1071, Team MAX, and our team will be competing at the event! The competition will take place on the 8th of June, 2024 at Wolcott High School, Wolcott CT. We hope to see ALL team members attend. The event will give our team a chance to show off Chompy and give us a chance to test out other drive team members who did not participate in district events. On June 7th, we will pack up the trailer and on June 10th, we will unpack the trailer. It is vital that anyone that can attend and help out shows up. That’s all!
Meetings for this week will be Monday and Thursday, 6:00pm to 9:00pm.
Till next time,
BArlow RobAutics
FRC Team 4572
Saturday, April 27 2024
Welcome back to the BArlow RobAutics blog!
Even though the season is over, we’re still finding ways to improve our 2024 season robot, Chompy, in preparation for offseason events. Electronic Systems is currently improving shooting angles, auto align, and autonomous while parameters are also being set on Shuffleboard. Mechanical Systems is also improving Chompy by fixing problems that were found on Chompy during our competitions. With these improvements and fixes, Chompy will come back even better in future offseason events.
Summer is rapidly approaching and with the summer comes our annual BArlow RobAutics summer camp! Each year, our team hosts a week-long summer camp that teaches incoming freshmen and any other interested JBHS students the basics of building a competition robot. Campers decide if they'd like to code or build the pre-designed robot and then the very robots that they built and coded are then used to compete in a fierce competition designed by BArlow RobAutics members and mentors. This year, our annual summer camp will most likely be held on June 24th - June 28th. There is a fee that needs to be paid so that your child can participate in the summer camp, but we ensure that it’ll be well worth it! Currently, the summer camp game and robot design is being worked on by mentors and BArlow RobAutics members, but we have a very exciting game prepared for incoming campers!
The annual BArlow RobAutics summer camp is not the only event that we’re hosting. We’re also going to be holding processing camps at our local libraries. Our first processing camp will be held on July 8th - July 12th at the Easton Public Library in Easton, CT and our second processing camp will be held the week after on July 15th - 19th at the Mark Twain Library in Redding, CT. These events are open to everyone, with the exception of the BArlow RobAutics summer camp, but we hope to see many excited faces!
Till next time,
BArlow RobAutics
FRC Team 4572
Saturday, April 13 2024
Welcome back to the BArlow RobAutics blog!
The 2024 FIRST Robotics Competition season, Crescendo, was a great experience for our team. We’ve worked so hard to build an impressive bot, Chompy, and it shows. For the first time in BArlow RobAutics history, we participated in the playoffs for both of our NE District events, Hartford and Waterbury. Another first for our team was that we were selected in the first round of alliance selections. At Waterbury, we won the Imagery Award for Chompy’s neon green aesthetic.
Unfortunately, we did not qualify for the FIRST NE District Championship. We ended the season with forty-four district points, which is the second highest amount we’ve ever had. We got unlucky at Waterbury and were placed against very strong teams, causing us to lose many matches. We will use this season as a learning experience to make sure we come back better in the next season of FIRST. A big thank you to all our sponsors, mentors, and team members who all put in their time and effort in making this season as great as it was for our team.
Although it may seem as if our season is over, there are still many events in the foreseeable future where we’ll be able to show off Chompy! One of the events that we hope to compete in is BattleCry@WPI. Battlecry is an off-season competition hailed for being “the best off-season event in FIRST.” Battlecry hosts sixty of some of the best teams in the FIRST NE District and is a two-day event, June 1-2. If we are able to register our team to compete in Battlecry, more information will be provided on our website and to parents through emails. Last year, we competed in the offseason event, Where is Wolcott Invitational, and we intend to go again this year if we can.
We will also host a variety of events throughout the summer, such as our annual Robotics Summer Camp at our high school (undecided date), our processing camps at the Easton Public Library (July 8-12) and the Mark Twain Library (July 15-19), and a demonstration of our robot at the Easton Public Library (June 29). Along with preparing for our events, we will spend our post-season increasing our robot knowledge, enhancing our outreach, and preparing for preseason by reaching out to incoming freshmen and reflecting on our teaching from this past year.
Till next time,
BArlow RobAutics
FRC Team 4572
Saturday, March 28 2024
Welcome to the BArlow RobAutics blog! This blog will be posted on our website, 4572.org, on a bi-weekly basis and will serve as a means for our team to keep people in the loop on the happenings of our team! With all that being said, let’s get into it!
For the 2024 FIRST robotics season, Crescendo, we presented Chompy. Equipped with swerve drive and the capability for climb, amp and speaker shooting, and floor and source intake, we had one of our best seasons yet! In the playoffs of our first event, the NE District Hartford event, we were selected by Nashoba Robotics and the Boston Lions, the first and second seeded teams. We won our first two matches, but we ended up getting eliminated in the 12th match of the playoffs. We ended the event with twenty district points. Our second event, the NE District Waterbury event, we were selected in the first round of alliance selections by Human Error, the sixth alliance captain! This is the first year in team history that we’ve been selected in the playoffs in both competitions. We, with Gus and Human Error, fought hard but got eliminated in the ninth match of playoffs. We ended the event with nineteen district points. We thought our acquisition of district points was over, but our spirit soon prevailed as we won the Imagery Award for our green accents on Chompy! This added five district points to our total, so we actually ended the event with twenty-four district points. With these two events, we are at a total of forty-four district points. We’re not sure if we’ll make the cutoffs for the NE District Championship, but we’re preparing as if we will!
In the event of us qualifying for districts, we will be going to the Big E in Springfield and fighting it out against the ninety-six best teams in New England. Permission slips, required by the school, are due by Monday on April 1, 2024 (this is a STRICT deadline). If permission slips are not submitted by then, those members who have not submitted their forms in time will not be able to attend. You can find the permission slip on an email sent to all parents and mentors by the Barlow Robotics email. We recommend that if your child will be attending district championships, then you should start booking hotels near the Big E. All accommodations must be made by the parent. Any other information can be found on our website, 4572.org, and in our emails that we have sent out.
Meetings for next week will be Monday and Tuesday, 6:00pm to 9:00pm. If we advance further into competition, our team members will be at the Big E for the NE FIRST District Championships on Thursday and Friday, 8:00am to 7:00pm, and Saturday, 7:30am to ~5:00pm. Those on Drive Team or in leadership will be going up to Springfield on Wednesday for load-in.
Till next time,
BArlow RobAutics FIRST Team 4572
