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Our Experience with FIRST Robotics

 

      It’s the golden age of invention and progression. With every new revolutionary innovation, our world comes one step closer to achieving the unimaginable. This robotics season, we received a momentary glimpse into the remarkable future of science, technology and engineering; with all credit attributed to FIRST. FIRST robotics has not only inspired a young generation of future innovators, but for our team, FIRST has fostered a community of like-minded, visionary, individuals. We were only twelve reluctant strangers who would merely pass by each other absentmindedly in the halls, when our first meeting of the season was called. At the time, we were unaware of the sacrifices we would soon make and the extraordinary lengths we would go to for the strangers sitting around us. Now our perspectives have radically changed: to our school community, we are a team, but to each other, we are a family. As we embarked on this new, transformative journey together, we enriched our academic learning by acquiring an amalgamation of mechanical, electrical and programming skills. However, our experience with FIRST goes beyond our individual performance and technical application. Through resilience and dedication, we learned that change is inevitable, but growth is optional and it is the trust and confidence in each other that carried us to success. Little did we know we would one day be pushing limits, changing lives, and shaping futures with our team work.

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

   Throughout this entire competition season, we have all come to realize how important teamwork and communication are to the improvement of our team. As a team that started out with twelve members, we quickly discovered that we would have to work a lot harder because we did not have enough people to get through the competition as smoothly as we had hoped. Having fewer team members brought us closer together and allowed us to communicate with each other more effectively. Every member was a crucial asset to our team. The entire team sacrificed hours after school to work on the robot, and we have made some of our biggest accomplishments through these times together. From our first test spin to our first cargo launch, we became determined to create a working robot that would lead us to our first win. The lack of team members forced each person to be flexible enough to switch roles and help out with anything we had trouble with. Software programmers would help start up the website for the media team, builders would help with the software, and the media team would help with repairing the robot. At our first competition at the University of Waterloo, we were able to finally understand the value of our final product. The team was ecstatic to try new strategies with the robot, like jumping down from the second landing, and even playing defence. When the robot came back for repairs, everyone would congratulate each other in the pit and give each other ideas on how to improve our strategies for the next match. This collaboration is exactly why we ended up being chosen for an alliance, at both Western and Waterloo. The only significant difference is that we came in first at the Western competition by using what we learned from Waterloo to improve our team. Our team started scouting and watching matches closely to see how different robots could be beneficial to our alliance, we tested the potential of our robot and learned how we could get cargo points in the rocket. We worked on the hatch panel arm, replaced our belt when it became loose and worn, and we learned to have more fun as a team overall. There were times when we were justifiably nervous, but this all helped us win the FIRST competition at Western University. Although we are a small group, we are all so proud of our accomplishments as a rookie team in this competition.

 

   Apart from being a small rookie group, we began our experience quickly learning how to manage our time wisely. During the 6 weeks we were given to build, we used them as wisely as we could. Our building and programming team stayed for long hours after school to work on the robot, while the media team worked on getting support from the FIRST Competition community both at school and at home. All of us, despite our knowledge of building robots or coding, were determined to finish the robot for our very first competition. Once at the competitions, we were able to repair and fix our robot in the allotted time since our technicians were so focused. When the alliance matches came around during the University of Waterloo competition, we were accompanied by our alliance team members who had helped us repair and improve our robot by adding weight to it to make it a better defense bot. We were all very thankful for the help and our robot was able to perform much better during the alliance matches. These matches definitely helped us manage our time better and more efficiently, and we brought this with us during our other competitions too. Once the season ended, everyone agreed that time management was a big lesson learned after we all experienced the pressure of a time restraint both during the build stage and the competitions themselves.

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   In our first year competing as a robotics team, we were all very nervous when heading out to our first competition at the University of Waterloo. We quickly came to realize how inclusive the robotics community actually was. After our first competition at the University of Waterloo we gained so much more confidence and experience. We walked around with pins from every team we saw and even made friends with through our mascot at Western University. Now, we were the ones confidently going around and socializing with different teams. In the arena, there was an immense amount of cheering going on when alliance partners gained a point. Teams always cheered for the winning team even if their own team lost. They were all great competitors and we could not have asked for a better season. What had shocked us the most was the media presence of these teams outside the competition. Nearly two months after the competition, we still speak with teams and cheer them on as they move on in the competition. We even gained some followings from teams in the United States, which we all thought was really interesting.

 

   Reflecting on our season, our team was given a multitude of opportunities including: learning from professional engineers/mentors, enhancing our proficiency in STEM-related skills, learning and using sophisticated software, hardware and shop work tools, drafting, designing, and then building our own robot, improving interpersonal, collaborative, media and communication skills, and finally, practicing gracious professionalism. However, these accomplishments and opportunities were done with little financial aid. Our team has consistently proven throughout our previous season, that when presented with an opportunity, we strive as hard as we can to best represent ourselves and make proud those who have granted us a chance to prove such. We are grateful for the opportunity presented to us by the Argosy Foundation and intend to seize this opportunity wholeheartedly without reservation. We would use this grant money to buy more efficient materials to expand our creative potential for our next season, to fund a training arena where we could practice with our robot, recruit more mentors to provide guidance for the team, and to attend robotics workshops to gain even more valuable experience. The exponential progress of technology is increasing the significance of imposing programs like FIRST to give students opportunities like these. But as outlined above, the most important lessons learned are the ones that do not necessarily strengthen our minds, but our team.