The theme of the 2020 season of the FIRST® Robotics Competition is INFINITE RECHARGE. In the creative challenge, two alliances work to protect the “city” from approaching asteroids caused by a distant space skirmish. The challenge is sponsored by Lucas Films and its theme is based around Star Wars so there are many references to the iconic film series within the challenge. Learn more about INFINITE RECHARGE in this video.

Since learning of the challenge, the team has had to learn the game, choose a design, use CAD (computer-aided design) to design the details, program the functions of the robot and then bring all these pieces together with accuracy. To make a winning robot come to life, those on the Roobotics team commit to meeting every evening after school and every weekend to prepare for competition, which unfortunately were postponed this year due to the Coronavirus.

Read a Q&A with Robotics Team member Andrew Romano ’21 to learn more: 

How has the season gone so far?
The season has been going well so far this year. We have nearly completed our robot and just have some fine-tuning to do. It has been challenging coming to a consensus on strategy and overall design of our robot using the Quaker decision-making process.

How long did the team have to design, build and program the robots? 
The team has around 10 weeks to design, build, and program the robot. Prior to this year, teams would originally have to “bag and tag” the robot and effectively stop building six weeks after the kickoff event. FIRST has elected to get rid of the system and allow teams to build all throughout the season. We are targeting to complete the robot with some time before our competition so that we can practice and tune our abilities.

I know you have some new equipment this season? What is new and how have you been able to benefit from these additions? 
We have received a generous donation from Beiping Dai P’20 and Liangmei Wang P’20 of a CNC router from Velox CNC. CNC stands for computer numerical control and can be used to cut metal materials to specific certifications. The router is controlled by a coded program and doesn’t use any manual controls. With the CNC we can achieve an astounding level of precision and reliability without as much work. Sadly, the CNC arrived too late for us to really put it to use this season, but we look forward to being able to use it next season and for years to come.

Andrew and the Roobotics Team would like to thank everyone who has helped the team this season, especially mentors Robert Amato P ’21, Douglass Gauck P ’21, P ’23, Craig SanPietro and Wayne Kurtz (Upper School Math Teacher) for helping them to learn and giving the team the opportunity to achieve hands-on experience in STEM.