FIRST Robotics Team. CooneyTech Robotics. Summary Newsletter November, 2017

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1 FIRST Robotics Team 269 CooneyTech Robotics Summary Newsletter November, Season Review Written by Sophia Fenger, Template by Rachel Foyer CooneyTech Robotics has participated in 19 different FIRST Robotics seasons. This year will mark our 20th year, which we honor and celebrate how far we have grown since our team s birth in Last year, we competed at the Wisconsin Regional from March 22nd to March 25th, This event was hosted at Milwaukee s Panther Arena. We won seven matches, ranking 13th out of 54 teams from around the world. We also were chosen in the alliance selections, bringing us to the quarterfinals of the competition. We also were lucky enough to experience the Seven Rivers Regional as our second regional. This was La Crosse s first time hosting a FIRST competition. It took place at the La Crosse Center from April 12th to April 15th, where we won five matches, ranking 32nd out of 51 teams. In addition to Milwaukee, we were also chosen for alliance to compete in the quarter finals. We look forward to this upcoming year. The teaser for this year s game, Power Up has already been released. Check it out at: Contents 1 Last Year s Conclusion 2 Parades and Summerfest 3 Coding Club & Tech Fair 4 R2OC & Touch a Truck 5 Shrimp Dinner, Carwash 6 Sponsors

2 Parades O n the 1st of July, our team had the opportunity to walk in Oconomowoc s local Independence day parade. We have always enjoyed walking with other organizations to demonstrate our robots and spread the awareness of what FIRST Robotics is. We also walked in Oconomowoc s homecoming parade on September 29th, handing out candy and walking with last year s robot, winning the Best Float award. Summerfest Our team attended Summerfest on July 8th with several other local teams in order to demonstrate our robots from last year s game and to explain FIRST. It was a fun event that we could work with other robotics teams, as well as raise awareness about CooneyTech. We handed out prizes to kids passing by who played our spinner game. We overall participated in a demonstration on a half-field for an audience.

3 Coding Club This summer, our robotics team created a coding club for the children in our local community between the ages of By working with the Oconomowoc Public Library, we were able to host our original club in Oconomowoc in which we could teach the participants basic forms of coding with the program RobotC. These kids built small robots with VEX materials, fitting together in a lego-like fashion, then created code in order to change the colored lights, the speed at which they flashed, and overall learned how to program their robot to move the way they wanted it to. The club met once a week for six weeks. At the conclusion of each meeting, the children we taught were so excited for the next lesson. We finished our six week course with a tech fair on August 5th for the students to present all the knowledge they learned to the community, as well as have a mock-competition. Members of our FIRST team also attended to supervise the kids with their robots, and we were able to show our FIRST robot we built last year. Other engineering stations were available in addition to the small competition and our demonstration, such as playing musical notes using fruit as batteries, manipulating images with the google search engine, as well as using sticky batteries. We loved teaching these children about robotics and programming. Many of these young students now plan to join the middle school robotics programs, and likely our high school program in the future. Our team looks forward to creating this curriculum again for next summer.

4 Rockford Each year, we participate in the R2oC competition in Rockford, Illinois. This non-profi t partnership of the Rock River Valley FIRST Robotics teams creates an event during the summer where different FIRST teams can introduce themselves and their previous robots in a nonstressful environment. 36 teams joined together this year on July 29th to take part in this off-season competition. This gives both new and old team members a chance to explore the different roles of the team, as well as experience the atmosphere of how a real tournament may feel like. Many of our graduated seniors returned for this event to guide the new and less experienced members of our team. It was a great chance to expose students to the concept of how a competition works. CooneyTech was also voted the Most Kid Friendly Team, demonstrating our incredible community involvement. Touch a Truck Touch a truck, hosted at Roosevelt Park in Oconomowoc, took place on October 6th when school was out for the district. With so many kids available for the day, we were able to add to their fun experience of touching a truck, by letting them touch a robot. Even the adults joined in, catching tossed wiffl e balls. This was our fi rst experiences with the event, and it was so much fun we hope we can participate again!

5 Shrimp Dinner By joining with the Kiwanis Breakfast Club, our team had the fun chance to serve shrimp to the general public of Oconomwoc! We had this event on November 5th. We have always enjoyed helping our sponsors and seeing our local community, displaying our bright, yellow shirts and spreading the word of robotics. We also get the great opportunity to explain what our build season is like and how much work goes into designing and creating a robot. Carwash & Brat Sale Each year, we have our team carwash and bratsale at Oconomowoc s Piggly Wiggly. On October 8th, we earned over $250 with our brat sale and received $ in donations from our carwash. Thank you to everyone who came by and supported our team! This is an event we do every year, and we have so much fun doing it as a team! Look forward to next year when we do this again. Training Our team takes part in a unique amount of training. We mentor at the local middle schools, as well as train our own new team members. High school training occurs on Mondays and Tuesdays and at the middle school on Wednesdays. The two VEX tournaments that we have been helping younger students prepare for are on December 2nd and 9th at Silver Lake and Nature Hill respectively.

6 Thank you SPONSORS The CooneyTech Robotics Team would like to thank all of its sponsors. Without you, our team wouldn t be able to continue its mission of educating and impacting our community through FIRST and STEM ideals. Bronze Engine Power Inc. Glory Global Solutions Inc. Herro, Chapman & Herro The Jewelry Mechanic MSI General Supreme Manufacturing Inc. Snyder & Ek Gold Church Metal Spinning Co. Milwaukee School of Engineering Sharp Packaging Systems Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) Spectrum Aluminum Finishing Silver First Bank Financial Centre Kiwanis Breakfast Club Lake Area Insurance Agency LLC North Lake Machine, Inc Oconomowoc Rotary Charitable Foundation Oconomowoc Realty Polymath, Inc. Sentry Equipment WaterStone Bank Platinum 3M Company GE Volunteers of GE Healthcare John Deere Oconomowoc Area School District Describe FIRST in one word: Interesting Amazing! Lifechanging dedication Fun