FIRST Robotics 1923

Mandatory Team Meeting

FRC1923 — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 02:09:20 +0000

We will be having our team meeting in North’s lower dining hall for tomorrow, February 10th, 2012. We will be taking our team picture and handing out team shirts, so, please be on time. We will be starting at 10:00am. Hope to see you there!

MANDATORY Team Meeting 10:00 am on Saturday, February 4th at Build Site

FRC1923 — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:58:51 +0000

We will be having our team meeting this Saturday at 10:00 am at the build site. We will be assessing our week 4 progress and preparing our goals for week 5. Please try to be there at 10:00 am SHARP so that we can start as early as possible and continue building for the . . . → Read More: MANDATORY Team Meeting 10:00 am on Saturday, February 4th at Build Site

Weather-related Schedule Changes

FRC1923 — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:37:23 +0000

In the event of inclement weather, our robot build site may be closed or operating under a delayed opening. If the decision is taken to delay or close the site, you will receive and email giving you this information. In addition, it will be “tweeted” via our team’s Twitter account (@FRC1923) and posted here . . . → Read More: Weather-related Schedule Changes

Help Us “Engineer Success” – Donate to Team 1923

Stevens — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 14:08:52 +0000

We have multiple levels of sponsorship that help to support the MidKnight Inventors’ participation in FIRST local, Regional and World Competitions. The funds will be used for program expenses, registration fees for FIRST Competitions, registration for off-season events, robot building supplies, tools, equipment, team supplies including team t-shirts/sweatshirts, and travel to competitions.

The 2011 Team 1923 T-shirts

Contributions of any size are greatly appreciated! As a FIRST Team 1923 sponsor/donor of $500 or more, your company will be listed on the Team 1923 t-shirts. With a donation of $1,000 or more, your corporate name and logo, linked to your website, will also appear on the team’s website (www.firstrobotics1923.org) as well as our t-shirts. In addition, your company name and logo will appear on our robot! Major sponsors will also be acknowledged in our build site, our work pit during our competitions and in FIRST competition publications distributed at events in which the team is competing. Please see our brochure for more information on sponsorship levels and benefits.

How to Make A Donation

There are several easy ways that you can make a tax-exempt donation to Team 1923:

1. Donate directly to Team 1923 by check: Write a check payable to “WWPHSN Robotics” and mail in care of WWP High School North, 90 Grovers Mill Road, Plainsboro, NJ 08536. Donations to public schools are tax-exempt. EIN: 22-1893736

2. 501(c)(3) charitable contributions through the WWP Education Foundation: If you prefer, you can donate to the West Windsor-Plainsboro Education Foundation, Inc. a IRS 501(c)(3) charitable organizations that accepts donations for FIRST Robotics Team 1923. All donations are tax-exempt to the fullest extent of the law and may qualify for Corporate Matching Gift Programs.* You will receive confirmation of your gift. For more information, visit www.wwpeducationfoundation.org or email the Foundation at info@wwpeducationfoundation.org.

Donate through the Foundation by check: Please make your check payable to the WW-P Education Foundation and designate it for WWP FRC Team 1923. Mail to: WWP Education Foundation, PO Box 280, Princeton Junction, NJ 08850-0280. EIN 22-3441000

Donate through the Foundation online: You can donate through the WW-P Education Foundation’s web site at: www.wwpeducationfoundation.org by clicking on the “DONATE NOW” icon.
Again, please designate your gift for WWP FRC Team 1923.

* The WW-P Education Foundation, Inc. is also registered with most Corporate Matching Gift Programs in the area. Please follow directions in #2 above, and also either enclose your employer’s matching gift form or complete the online forms, if available.

THANK YOU!

FIRST Robotics Team 1923 Thanks the West Windsor / Plainsboro Communities for 2011 Support

Stevens — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 21:38:36 +0000

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 two months. Competing with radio-controlled robots in a rigorous game modeled after sports championships, our team 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 won the Northeast Utilities Connecticut Regional at the end of March after entering the finals as the tournament’s number one seed. We will next represent WW-P High Schools North and South at the FIRST Championship in St. Louis April 28 through 30.

Every year FIRST designs a different game involving new challenges to test our engineering skills, strategic thinking and ability to work as a team. In January, all teams receive only the minimum parts to build a robot and a rules manual for the competition. How the robot is designed, how it accomplished tasks to score points and how it is programmed are all left to students. This year’s competition is called “LOGO Motion. The MidKnight Inventors use our 120 pound robot to earn points by hanging as many triangle, circle and square pieces of the FIRST logo as possible during each two-minute match. This year bonus points can be earned by successfully deploying an independent “mini-bot” from inside of the larger robot to climb a ten-foot vertical pole at the end of the match.

Building the 2011 robot!

FRC Team 1923 consists of over forty students from West Windsor-Plainsboro High Schools North and South and is completely funded by our communities. This year, our team built the robot in a beautiful storefront at 64 Princeton-Hightstown Road that was graciously donated by Windsor Plaza Revitalization by Cyzner Properties. Through the efforts of the West Windsor-Plainsboro Education Foundation, the team also received valuable grants from Bristol-Myers Squibb, Integra Foundation, Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals, MIM Software, Novo Nordisk, Bank of America, the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District, and Montessori Connections as well as a number of other local businesses and individuals. Currently, Team 1923 is seeking to raise approximately $7,000 to offset increased travel costs for attending the two remaining 2011 competitions. To see a complete list of our sponsors, or to make a contribution to the team to support our upcoming trips to Connecticut and St. Louis, please visit our web site at http://firstrobotics1923.org/sponsors or send us an email at info@firstrobotics1923.org.

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!

Kelsey Stevens and Jason Marcus

FRC Team 1923 Co-Captains

On behalf of our entire team

The MidKnight Inventors Emerge Victorious In 2011 Connecticut Regional

Stevens — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 15:05:52 +0000

West Windsor-Plainsboro High Schools North and South FIRST Robotics
Team 1923 Wins the 2011 Northeast Utilities Connecticut Regional

MidKnight Inventors also pick up two additional awards

West Windsor and Plainsboro, NJ – April 2, 2011 – The West Windsor‐Plainsboro Regional School District’s FIRST Robotics Team 1923, with students from High School North and High School South, won the prestigious Northeast Utilities FIRST Connecticut Regional Robotics Competition in Hartford, CT on Saturday, April 2nd. This year’s 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 known as “the varsity sport for the mind,” 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, The MidKnight Inventors also came away with two major non-competition awards. Team 1923 won the Gracious Professionalism^TM 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 Coopertition^TM Award celebrating the team that best demonstrates the ability to help their opponents compete throughout the entire competition. “The FIRST Robotics Competition is about much more than just building a robot,” said Michael Stevens, one of the adult volunteer team mentors for the MidKnight Inventors. “The entire West Windsor and Plainsboro communities should be proud of how their sons and daughters unselfishly helped many other teams – including those we were directly competing against – field the best possible robot they could. ”

Want to know how they build the robot? In early January 2011, the MidKnight Inventors and all other teams received a common kit of parts from FIRST to build a robot with no instructions. Jason Marcus, a senior at High School North and co‐captain, explained, “The team along with the volunteer mentors had six weeks to design, build, program, and test a robot to meet this season’s engineering challenge, LogoMotion^TM.” The 2011 game is played on a 27 by 54-foot field and each match lasts 135 seconds. Each three-team alliance uses 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 in the time allotted. The further up on the post the robots hang their pieces, the more points the teams score. In the final 10 seconds of each match, additional points are scored by having a mini-robot, deployed from the team’s larger robot quickly climb a ten-foot metal tower pole before the final buzzer.

For the first time, the West Windsor and Plainsboro communities were able to watch the MidKnight Inventors build their robot 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 eight weeks. Through the support of the West Windsor‐Plainsboro Education Foundation, a nonprofit organization, the team received generous grants from Bristol‐Myers Squibb, Novo Nordisk, and Ortho‐McNeil‐Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. Additional sponsors were Bank of America, MIM Software, and Montessori Connection, as well as a number of local businesses and individuals.

By winning at the regional level, the MidKnight Inventors have qualified for the international FIRST Robotics Competition Championships to be held in St. Louis, MO beginning April 28th. “We need the help of the West Windsor and Plainsboro communities to raise money to attend this competition,” explained Kelsey Stevens, a junior at WW-P High School North and co-captain of the MidKnight Inventors. “We are going to try to raise enough money for our team and for two inner‐city teams from New York City, so that these students can participate as well.”

You can help us “Engineer Success”

There are several easy ways that you can make a donation to the Team:

Write a check payable to “WWPHSN Robotics” and mail in care of WWP High School North, 90 Grovers Mill Road, Plainsboro, NJ 08536. Donations to public schools are tax-exempt. EIN: 22-1893736
If you prefer to donate to IRS 501(c)(3) charitable organizations, please make your check payable to the WW-P Education Foundation* and designate it for WWP FRC Team 1923. All donations are tax-exempt to the fullest extent of the law. You will receive confirmation of your gift. Mail to: WW-P Education Foundation, PO Box 280, Princeton Junction, NJ 08850-0280. EIN 22-3441000
You can donate through the WW-P Education Foundation’s web site at www.wwpeducationfoundation.org. Again, please designate your gift for WWP FRC Team 1923.

* The WW-P Education Foundation, Inc. accepts donations for FIRST Robotics Team 1923, and is registered with most corporate matching gift programs in the area. Please follow directions in #2 above, and also either enclose your employer’s matching gift form or complete the forms online, if available. For more information, visit www.wwpeducationfoundation.org or email them at info@wwpeducationfoundation.org.

Connecticut Regional

rajvaidya — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 02:38:56 +0000

Team 1923 recently traveled up north to Hartford, CT for the Northeast Utilities FIRST Connecticut Regional (3/31 – 4/2). This regional was probably THE HIGHLIGHT of our season so far. The MidKnight Inventors finished qualification rounds as the First Seed of the regional. During alliance selections, we picked Team 155 (The Technonuts from Berlin, CT) and Team 195 (The Cyber Knights from Southington, CT). We went into the elimination rounds with confidence and determination and sure enough, the hard work paid off as we swept teams 1073, 177, and 175 in the finals to become this season’s winners! That wasn’t the end of the MidKnight Inventors’ dominance. We were given the FIRST Coopetiton and Gracious Professionalism awards. What a weekend it was for us and it the results were well deserved. Now the focus is to go out there and compete hard in the World Championships at St. Louis.

Millstone River Science Fair

rajvaidya — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 18:08:05 +0000

The MidKnight Inventors traveled to the local Millstone River Elementary School for a huge science fair. We saw the talent that elementary school kids have to offer. They’re very innovative in their thinking. To treat them to their efforts, we brought in our minibot and our Lunacy robot. The interest level was higher than . . . → Read More: Millstone River Science Fair

LEGO Mindstorms Robotics class

FRC1923 — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 19:28:41 +0000

Experience the fun of building fully-functional robots with LEGOs! We will enter the world of robotic engineering, designing, inventing, and constructing robotic creations using the LEGO Mindstorms Robotics system. Students work in small teams during the first morning to build a robot capable of performing a specific challenge. On the second morning, teams will compete against each other in a friendly competition to see who built the best robot. Taught by high-school students from the WW-P FIRST Robotics Team 1923, these classes will give students a glimpse into the amazing world of robotics.

Contact the West Windsor-Plainsboro Community Education to register.

This year’s pictures

rajvaidya — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 21:33:03 +0000

If you click our photo gallery tab, you will see our Flickr photos of the 2010-2011 build season. Take a look at them on your own time. You will all see how we grew close together as one team this year .