FRC Team 1923 – 2011 Program Report
A Year of Success – A Year of Growth
The West Windsor-Plainsboro High School FIRST Robotics Team 1923, The MidKnight Inventors, had an extremely successful 2010/2011 year. The MidKnight Inventors participate in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). Known as “The varsity sport for the mind,” FRC combines the thrills and excitement of sports with the rigors of science and technology. Under strict rules, limited resources and rigid time limits, student teams are challenged to raise funds, design a team “brand,” hone teamwork skills, and build and program a 120-pound robot to perform prescribed tasks against a field of global competitors. It’s as close to “real-world engineering” as a student can get. The Team has an expanding number of volunteer mentors and parents who lend their time and talents to guide the Team in multiple areas, including not only robot design but also business skills, entrepreneurship, software coding, fundraising, and finance to name but a few.
Representing West Windsor and Plainsboro, the Team continued to grow, reaching nearly 50 students from both High School North and High School South this year. Efforts to increase team diversity proved successful and one-quarter of the Team was comprised of young women. The growth of Team 1923 made us stronger and expanded our capabilities into new areas. Students were recruited through the high schools’ club fairs, word of mouth, Community Middle School’s FIRST Lego League Team, or through exposure to FIRST Robotics at one of our community awareness events.
Team 1923 competed in this year’s New Jersey Regional FIRST Robotics Competition and qualified as the number three seed out of 61 high school teams from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, California, Canada, and Brazil. The MidKnight Inventors then took to the road and won the Northeast Utilities Connecticut Regional at the end of March after entering the finals as the tournament’s number one seed. The students went on to represent the WW-P High Schools at the FIRST Robotics Championship in St. Louis in April where The MidKnight Inventors achieved a respectable 5 and 5 record against “the best of the best” from around the world.
This Year’s Challenge: LogoMotion™
The 2011 game was played on a 27- by 54-foot field with each match lasting 135 seconds. Each three-team alliance used their 120-pound remote controlled robots to place colored inner tubes on a scoring grid nearly 10 feet high to form as many FIRST logos as possible. The higher the robots hung their pieces, the more points the teams scored. In the final 10 seconds, additional points were scored by having a mini-robot, deployed from inside the team’s robot and quickly climb a ten-foot metal pole before the final buzzer.
A Closer Look at Team 1923’s Connecticut Regional FRC Victory
The prestigious Northeast Utilities FIRST Robotics Competition Connecticut Regional was held in Hartford, CT in early April. This regional competition featured 58 teams of students, teachers and mentors from the United States and Brazil. The MidKnight Inventors, who were 15 and 1 over the two-day competition, entered the elimination rounds as the tournament’s number one seeded team. Team 1923 selected two Connecticut teams, The Techno-Nuts (Team 155: Berlin) and The Cyber Knights (Team 195: Southington), as Alliance Partners for the Championship rounds. In addition to winning the Robotics Competition with our Alliance partners, The MidKnight Inventors also came away with two major non-competition awards. Team 1923 won the Gracious ProfessionalismTM Award sponsored by Johnson & Johnson which celebrates outstanding sportsmanship and continuous “Gracious Professionalism” in the heat of competition, both on and off the playing field. The Team also won the CoopertitionTM Award celebrating the team that best demonstrates the ability to help their opponents compete throughout the entire competition. It is quite rare for a team to win both awards – and the competition itself!
Building the 2011 Robot in the Community – With Community Support
In past years, the Team built their robots in a student’s family garage. This year the West Windsor and Plainsboro communities were able to watch the MidKnight Inventors build their robot in “real time” thanks to the generosity of Windsor Plaza Redevelopment by Cyzner Properties who donated a storefront in the former ACME shopping center to the Team for this year’s build season. Team 1923 had an “open door” policy and numerous passersby stopped in to see the robot taking shape and learn more about FIRST Robotics. Interested people were greeted at the door and given a supervised tour of the work site by the students, parents and mentors.
In February, The MidKnight Inventors held a public open house for our generous sponsors, friends, and the community. Through the support of the West Windsor‐Plainsboro Education Foundation, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, the team received generous grants from Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novo Nordisk, Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals, and the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District. Additional sponsors included The Integra Foundation, Hess, Bank of America, MIM Software, The Bagel Hole, and Montessori Connection as well as a number of local businesses, community service organizations and individuals.
Community Outreach and Education
FIRST Robotics Competition is more than just building a robot. Team 1923 was extremely busy over last year actively promoting science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and – of course – FIRST Robotics! Beyond our successes with the robot, The MidKnight Inventors spread the word of FIRST, science, technology, mathematics, and engineering in our schools and community in a variety of ways, including:
- Free Java Programming Classes
- Fundraisers/Awareness Events
- A New Ambassador Program
- Community Events/Open House
- Promoting FIRST Lego League
- FIRST Lego League Mentoring
- A New Community-based Build Site
To promote interest in computer science in our community, the MidKnight Inventors gave free Java Programming classes. Held on Sundays for eight weeks at the Plainsboro Library, the classes were open to the public. To raise team funds, we held a number of popular pizza sales after school, increasing team awareness. Team 1923 also hosted bake sales at the local Plainsboro SuperFresh to both raise money and increase community awareness of FRC Team 1923 and FIRST.
The MidKnight Inventors partnered with the four West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District elementary schools and were actively involved in helping and exhibiting at their PTA science fairs and events. Team 1923 students also serve as mentors to the WW-P Community Middle School‘s FIRST Lego League team and Dutch Neck Elementary School’s FIRST Junior Lego League team. For the first time, this year The MidKnight Inventors also sponsored Lego Mindstorm® Robotics classes for young students.
Studies show young women are less inclined to join science, engineering and, more specifically, robotics teams. Going beyond the school system, FIRST Team 1923 was instrumental in starting the first Girl Scout Lego League team in our area and several female team members actively mentor the team. The Girl Scouts competed in a regional competition in December, advancing to the Delaware Championship! To further involve these exceptional young women in robotics, we participated with them in their FIRST Tech Fair and Scrimmage in March.
New Team Structure Introduced
2010/2011 saw the introduction of a new leadership and organizational structure for the MidKnight Inventors. As a result of Team 1923’s growth, this year we adopted a structure with two student co-captains and student leaders for nine different “departments” within the organization. The new student-led departments established this year are:
- Robot Building
- Programming
- Internal Communications
- External Communications
- Fundraising
- Scouting and Strategy
- Media – Photos and Videos
- Animation/Computer Assisted Design (CAD)
- Website (www.FIRSTRobotics1923.org)
Farewell to Our Departing Seniors!
In June, The MidKnight Inventors bid a fond farewell to nine graduating seniors from the Class of 2011. Again this year, we had a 100% graduation rate with the overwhelming majority of our new Team 1923 alumni pursuing degrees in science, engineering and other STEM-related fields.
A Final Thank You
The West Windsor-Plainsboro High Schools’ FIRST Robotics Competition Team 1923 – “The MidKnight Inventors” – would like to publicly thank everyone who has contributed to our team’s success over the past year. We are 100% funded by the generosity of the West Windsor and Plainsboro communities.
To see a complete list of our generous sponsors for 2010/2011, please visit the Team’s website at www.FIRSTRobotics1923.org and “click” on the Sponsors tab.
You can also see The MidKnight Inventors in action (photos and videos) by clicking on the PHOTOS tab and follow us throughout the coming year on our HOME/NEWS page.
Again, FIRST Robotics Team 1923 would like to thank everyone who has helped us “engineer success” this year and we hope to continue to represent West Windsor and Plainsboro well in this year’s competition and in years to come! We hope we can earn your continued support!
For more information, please contact:
Kathy Rogers, Volunteer Advisor/Mentor at:
marketing@firstrobotics1923.org
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