One week out from Southern Maine and it’s crunch time for 467. We’ve been working endlessly over the school break to make our robot competition ready.

Our mechanical team has fixed issues with our elevator to ensure it can withstand rapid movement and made minor adjustments to the climber to ensure its consistency. The programming team took control of the robot. They were able to finalize the drive controls and started on automatic scoring alignment to aid driving. The electrical team mounted and wired up our LEDs which will allow the drive team to communicate and react faster. The impact award presenters are doing mock presentations to mentors and we are finalizing the video submission.

467 dealt with many ups and downs during Week 6, which comes as no surprise as we’re continuing to grasp the intricacies of this robot. Unfortunately, we snapped a shaft in our climber mechanism, temporarily halting testing. However, our machining team was on top of things and manufactured a new shaft immediately.

In addition, we accidentally ran the wrong code for our elevator, causing a very unscheduled disassembly. This demonstrated the key failure points of the mechanism, which soon strengthened mechanically. Despite these setbacks, 467 bounced back with renewed excitement to fix and complete the robot to give programming the time they need to complete and test the code. As repairs were made and wiring was completed, programming received the robot once more and has been tireless in their pursuit of controlling the robot. We are steadily making progress towards being ready to compete. The outreach team shared a similar level of dedication, completing the proof binder and presentation script. While 467 has endured many struggles recently, we still strive to be competitive at the Southern Maine District Event!

It’s been 5 weeks since kickoff, and in two weeks we will be at our first competition of the season in Falmouth, Maine! The robot is nearly complete, but some fine-tuning is needed. Both programming and electrical have been working to get the robot moving, although we’ve had occasional mechanical issues, such as with our elevator clutch.

While these setbacks hindered our progress, they progressed our iteration process and forced us to continue making improvements. Machining is complete for our entire robot and the shop is now working to finish our homemade AprilTag mounts and remanufacture parts that needed to be altered. Heading over to our outreach subteam, our Impact presenters are finalizing their script and starting their presentation prep. The rest of our Impact team is hard at work on the proof binder to validate all our presented information. We faced challenges along the way but have persevered and are excited to be back on track. See you next week!

We’re already halfway through the build season and our team is moving at a good rate! The shop is continuing to work through the large list of drawings required for all the parts on this robot. While our large industrial machines are crucial to the production of our robots, our 3D printers are equally important, working on smaller elements with filament courtesy of our generous sponsor, Polymaker.

We were able to get some of our key subsystems mounted to the robot and prep the rest for mounting next week. We had a few slip-ups using the wrong length bolts and some interference issues between mechanisms. However, with the help of our captains and team leads, we were able to spot these issues and correct them, crucially ensuring that we wouldn’t run into them later on. We are close to handing off the robot to our programming and electrical teams to get the robot up and running. We would like to congratulate our Impact team for finishing the Woodie Flowers and Impact essays. Not only this, but the Impact presentation is close to completion and is nearly ready for its first round of edits!

It’s week 3, and our three main sub-teams are on a roll! Our manufacturing team is working as quickly as possible to machine parts based on the drawings they’ve been given. While the CAD team is finally slowing down after two weeks of hard work, they are still diligent in finalizing smaller details.

Mechanical is beginning to piece together each subsystem, primarily focusing on the drivetrain. The students note any improvements needed for each mechanism and relay them back to CAD. Electrical has been busy finishing their schematics and preparing to take cable measurements. They are also coordinating with mechanical to ensure enough space for all electrical components, primarily on the bellypan. Meanwhile, programming has nearly completed the vision code and is beginning work on autonomous.

Week 2 is a wrap! Our mechanical subteam finished CADing the robot and is chipping away at making drawings for the manufacturing subteam, which will utilize our knee mill, lathe, and CNC router to machine various parts, the first being the bellypan of the robot. Our electrical team is finishing up the electronics schematic and the wiring plan document to ensure our measurements/extensions are up to date.

Our programming subteam has been compiling the information the mechanical and electrical subteams gave to continue writing code for the competition robot, including implementing vision systems and LEDs.To ensure maximum efficiency, we have also administered cross-functional subsystems, having one mechanical subsystem lead working with a corresponding programming subsystem lead. Lastly, we are working on finishing edits for the website and executive summaries.

467 is starting with a bang! Our team is divided into sub-teams, which split further into specific subsystems. This ensures that the experienced kids are spread out, while the new kids get to learn the ropes. The mechanical subteam contains six prototyping teams; varying from deep cage testing to algae manipulation. These teams are deciding on major design choices and prototyping before heading into CAD to make higher-fidelity designs.

Reefscape is officially live! Our team got together for a watch party of the livestream, and safe to say we were impressed with the new style of gameplay. Excitement carried throughout the day as the team rushed to decrypt the game manual and start to formulate a game plan, even through our lunch break. Cannot wait to see what this season has in store for us, see you at week 1 Southern Maine district event!

Shrewsbury Robotics has come to the end of our 2024/25 FIRST LEGO League season. We have had a great year mentoring teams for Shrewsbury Public Schools and are very pleased with how much they have achieved especially for what is their rookie year for most of them.

We started with 16 teams comprised of 5th-8th grade students, in general 5/6 students on a team. Each team was coached by parent volunteers who in turn were mentored by High School FIRST Robotics team members and mentors. We helped the teams by teaching how to use the new Spike LEGO kits, assistance with building robots and developing projects. In addition, we provided the teams with 2 mock competitions that included full judging sessions.

On Saturday, December 7, our team hosted our 17th Mindstorm Mayhem qualifier. It was an exciting event, allowing young creators to compete on a local level while still being exposed to a competitive environment.

With an incredible turnout of nearly 36 teams, we were able to provide the students with a fun and challenging competition.

In addition, two former FLL members reunited with MC King and took a picture to celebrate as seen below. With smiles all around, our team members created new connections making a truly memorable occasion. As always, we can’t wait for the next time we host Mindstorm Mayhem. See you there!