Our friends at Rideau Public School have some very exciting news to share–One of their teams placed FIRST at the Limestone District SKILLS Challenge and have qualified to compete at the provincial level in Waterloo at the end of the month.
They are very thankful to the weekly mentorship provided by three of our K-Bots.
Congratulations Rideau!
We had an early morning again today, arriving at the venue to be first in line again at our door of choice. 
We waited until the doors opened and we headed to ideal scouting location in the stands. Our top secret super surprise knitting project, the prop for our Chairman’s presentation, and largest hat that we’ve made so far, took its place of prominence with us in the stands.
Did you know that K-Bots are everywhere? Not only are they dressed up in purple and hats cheering on our team, but they are also dressed up in volunteer shirts, helping out the entire competition.
K-Bots are also in disguise as University of Waterloo students. Today we were thrilled to have Harry with us once more. He graduated last year, and is now studying civil engineering.
Several of our founding mentors came to cheer us on as well. Thanks so much JNo and Mike for making the trip to see us! We miss you.
As matches were played, our scouts took their places and recorded data on each robot. It takes a lot of focus to be a scout. Everyone worked really hard today to take great notes on everything that happened.
After the first few matches we found ourselves in 4th place in the rankings! We didn’t last there for very long though.
A series of various technical glitches were worked out during the day. We were glad of our time on the practice field when we were able to get it.
Several of our matches were played in rapid succession, so quickly that we could not return to the pit for any repairs.
At that point, we had to change batteries and make adjustments while in queue for the next match.
This morning our Chairman’s team made their presentation to the panel of judges. We believe strongly in our team, and how we’ve knit ourselves into the fabric of our community this year.
After the presentation, we were ALL smiles! 
We ate lunch outside on the grass. The food choices at the regional have been so great. We are eating very healthy and tasty food. It is even better to be able to eat it in the fresh air!
The wildlife spotting of the day was a Canada Goose that was violently pecking at the door to the Physical Activities Center! 
We were ahead of schedule this afternoon, so between matches there was a competition for humans to balance the bridge. Pairs of big and small people were chosen to test their skills.
As with most things on our team….it all starts with a hug. The bridge was quickly balanced after that!
As scouting continued, all of the data got entered into a computer database to be analyzed for our scouting meeting in the evening.
“I entered over 4000 numbers today!” -Sawyer, grade 9
.At the close of the day, we joined many other teams in some lively dances like the YMCA and Cotton Eye Joe. 
Awards were presented, and we took home the Imagery Award in honour of Jack Kamen.
The Imagery Award is in honor of Jack Kamen, Dean’s father for Jack’s inspirational dedication to art and illustration, his gifted creativity and devotion to FIRST. The Imagery Award celebrates attractiveness in engineering and outstanding visual aesthetic integration from the machine to the team appearance.
We joined the other teams for the biggest pizza party we’ve ever been to! 
Eating dinner together like this is a fun way to wind down after a busy and sometimes hectic day.
When we returned to our hotel, the entire team got to hear the final version of the Chairman’s presentation–good job team, it sounded great even at the end of a very long day!
Our scouting meeting was a very crowded one! We projected our database onto the wall and made our optimal pick list for tomorrow’s alliance selection. We are very thankful to our scouts for the great data that they collected, and to all of our photographers for making sure that each robot was represented well.
Tomorrow will be an exciting day. We’re all going to bed early to prepare!
Posted in 2012 Rebound Rumble
Tagged award, Chairman's Report, competition, First Robotics, FRC, rebound rumble, waterloo
It’s March Break, and where do we find ourselves??? In a warehouse of course! Where would we rather be spending holiday time, but with our purple family, and the Cyberfalcons, team 3710. 
We’ve got lots of work to do this week to prepare for Waterloo, and the Cyberfalcons are in their last minute crunch time to prepare for the Montreal Regional this weekend.
We are creating a structural element that will protect our electrical system from impact injuries. We realized that in Oshawa making contact with the bridge can do some serious damage! This protective element will be dual purpose, and fit nicely into our game strategy.
Everyone always says to measure twice and cut once? That should also be said to “check the drawings twice and cut once”. We managed to make a variety of parts, but it took 4 tries to make the two that we were looking for.
Next time we’ll be looking carefully at the drawings, specially when we are making mirrored parts. Good thing we had lots of metal here with us today.
“Look, I’m holding it at 1/3 of the length!” -Olivia, grade 8
Our crew also got working on the shooter. We’re making some mechanical weight saving changes, and we’ll try a few different ideas to get more control over the ball.
One of the solutions to our control issue is to make sure the camera mount doesn’t shake. A few rivets did the trick!
Programmers are now very excited about the layout of the driver station. Not only do we have our name printed across the top, but we have the option for a second camera image.
K-Bots, we’re meeting from 5:30-10:30 Wednesday at the Plant 2 warehouse to continue working. Please bring your homework from competition.
Homework from competition: We earned the Engineering Inspiration Award at the GTR East competition. Please find some way to express how being on K-Botics or being involved in FIRST has inspired you in some way, or has provided you with more understanding about engineering. This can be expressed however you like: paragraphs, equations, songs, videos, comic books, programming code, or interpretive dance. Be creative! We’d like to keep a record of your thoughts and ideas for our archives.
Posted in 2012 Rebound Rumble
Tagged award, CAD, Cyber Falcons, First Robotics, FRC, rebound rumble, team building, Transformix
It was a full breakfast room this morning at 6:30 AM as two FRC teams tried to eat a good meal before a long and competitive day. 
We arrived to the competition and took our place in line behind our friends 1114, 2056 and 610. Team 188 followed quickly behind us, and together we ensured that today the mad rush was a little less pushy.
Everyone is so excited to get started in the morning….some of our grade 9 students were quite surprised to be waking up before 6AM on a weekend morning while on a school trip!
We cheered on our team with all our might!
And while competition continued on the field, repairs (both small and large) happened in the pit. 
Our matches this morning were not as successful as most of the ones yesterday. We ended the qualification rounds with a 5-3-1 record, and in 16th place at the start of alliance selection.
We were selected by the 5th alliance captain, team 1241 and joined by team 2626 to form an alliance for the elimination matches. 
We worked out a strategy with our alliance partners and developed a game plan over lunch.
Congratulations to Liam for winning a bag of chocolate for guessing how much was in a jar at the social event last night!
During the elimination rounds the game plan changes from earning coopertition points using the middle bridge with your opposing alliance member to earning extra points for getting an entire alliance onto the bridge. 3 robots on the bridge barely fit, but we saw it a few times. Here’s team 1075, team 548 and team 4307 with a triple balance in the quarter finals…
….and here’s our friends team 610, team 188 and team 3360 who balanced like this for much of the afternoon!
We were not so lucky with our end game balancing act. We could usually get 2 robots on, but this time, the clock stopped with our partner half off. We were eliminated in quarter final play.
Our team continued to watch the rest of the drama unfold as the semis and finals progressed. 
Part of our team returned to the pit to clean up and pack all of our belongings. When in the pit, we’re super safe. Here’s Michelle, dressed in her purple, wearing her proper safety attire!
We’d like to thank our sponsors for all that they’ve done for us, and all of the support that they gave leading up to the competition. We would not be here without the financial backing, the material donations and the time and energy spent making our team what it is.
As we were cleaning up our pit area we got to know some new friends from team 2056. It’s a small world when we realize that our purple and blue families intersect with the Cyberfalcons! FIRST is great for joining individual teams together as families, and creating networks of teams among communities. 
Even though we were eliminated from play, we continued to dance up a storm!
We danced in the stands…and we danced on the sidelines with a few other teams. 
We watched as the finals progressed….it was a grudge match between an alliance of 1114 and 2056 facing an alliance of 610 and 188. We know these teams well–we meet them in line for the doors to open each morning! Some of our mentors were once part of these teams, and we cheer them on and watch in awe at the things their robots can do.
At the end of the competition, awards are given out to many teams. Many teams qualified to go to championships from this regional. Many congratulations and standing ovations were given to the following:
Team 1114: Chairman’s Award
Team 1114, Team 2052, Team 1219: Regional winners
Team 4334: Rookie All Star Award
and…..drum roll please…..TEAM 2809 for Engineering Inspiration!
“The Engineering Inspiration Award celebrates a team’s outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering and engineers, both within their school and their community. Criteria include: the extent and inventiveness of the team’s efforts to recruit students to engineering, the extent and effectiveness of the team’s community outreach efforts, and the measurable success of those efforts. This is the second highest team award FIRST bestows.
Unlike the Chairman’s Award, the Engineering Inspiration Award has no formal submission nor presentation to the judges. In fact, many teams who do not submit for the Chairman’s Award win the Engineering Inspiration. The judges get their information from other teams, students and mentors, and robot performance.”
We were caught very much off guard with this award, and some of us did not realize that this means we’re going to the Championships in St. Louis.
K-Bots: Be sure you have passports! Get lots of sleep tonight because the work will continue very soon. Keep checking your email over march break.
Posted in 2012 Rebound Rumble
Tagged award, Cyber Falcons, First Robotics, FRC, GTR, mentors, Queen's University, rebound rumble, safety, sponsors, team building, thank you, Transformix
FIRST Robotics Competition Woodie Flowers Award Criteria
The Woodie Flowers Award celebrates effective communication in the art and science of engineering and design. Dr. William Murphy founded this prestigious award in 1996 to recognize mentors who lead, inspire, and empower using excellent communication skills.
Two subcategories are awarded: The Woodie Flowers Finalist Award (WFFA) is presented to one adult mentor at each Regional Competition. The Woodie Flowers Award (WFA) is presented to one WFFA winner at Championship.
Each year, students may submit an essay nominating one mentor from their team to be considered for this award. FIRST will recognize one adult mentor at each regional to receive the WFFA. If a team already has a mentor who has won the WFFA in a prior year, then that team may re-submit that mentor in the current year in addition to nominating a mentor for the WFFA if they wish. The current year WFFA winners, along with those mentors who won a WFFA in a prior year, and have been re-nominated, will be judged to receive the WFA at the FRC Championship.
Spirit of the Award
High school students on a FIRST Robotics Competition team will choose one adult team member as their WFFA candidate. The students will describe how this mentor has given them the best understanding of the challenges, opportunities, and satisfaction involved in the discipline of engineering and design. Professor Flowers will lead the past Championship Woodie Flowers Award (WFA) winners as they judge and select the Finalists and Championship winner based on student essays.
This award recognizes an individual who has done an outstanding job of motivation through communication while also challenging the students to be clear and succinct in recognizing the value of communication. As such, it is very important that this is a student led effort and a student decision. Team mentors should direct their students to the online entry site and let the high school student nominators decide who to nominate. Adults can help edit, but this must be a student led effort, since any team mentor is eligible. Authors must be clearly identified as high school students in the online submission.
Award Eligibility Requirements Regional WFFA (except District Event Teams) – Each team may nominate one adult member from their team for the WFFA. The adult mentor must be on the same team as the student nominators and only one adult member may be nominated per team. Previous year WFFA winners are not eligible to win the current year WFFA.
Judging Criteria
Two aspects of this award are important: (1) the accomplishments in communication by the mentor and (2) the student’s ability to communicate clearly and concisely through their written nomination. Specific judging criteria are based on the team’s description of how the mentor inspired each member of the team in some or all of the following ways:
Each FIRST team completes a product development cycle as it designs a concept, develops a prototype, and builds and debugs a unique machine. This requires teamwork, attention to detail, scheduling, and hard work. The award-winning essay should answer this question; “How did the candidate inspire your team throughout this process?” If the essay best describes how this individual excels above all others as he or she inspires the team, then that mentor truly deserves to be recognized with the award that honors Professor Woodie Flowers and his contribution to engineering, education, and communication.
Entry Requirements The students enter team and candidate information, reference information, and a maximum three thousand (3,000) character essay written in English. Teams may also add up to six (6) pictures, totaling no more than 1.0 Mb. of memory. This essay should be a team effort and will stand alone as the team’s entry to award their candidate the deserved recognition.
Nomination Form HERE
Posted in 2012 Rebound Rumble
Tagged award, build season, First Robotics, FRC, mentors
For all of you senior students out there, it’s time to start looking at scholarships. There are many available through the FIRST organization.
Check out the list HERE
Deadlines vary, some applications are due REALLY soon, others are during the hectic days of build season (which starts really soon).
Our tournament today was a big success! We arrived a little bleary eyed at 7 AM, but by 8 AM everyone was ready to go and our school gym was buzzing with activity as teams arrived and set up, robots were tested on practice tables.
All morning teams presented their projects, robots, and core values for judging panels.
The hallways were buzzing with excited teams, coaches and parents. For some teams this was their very first FLL competition!
Each team was assigned a K-Bot to be their guide for the day. We love making connections with our FLL friends and we look forward to seeing them in the next few years at competition, and eventually when they join us in high school!
We showed our past season’s robot and offered driving lessons to our younger friends. Many parents and judges were really intrigued with what we can accomplish during a 6 week build season. We invited them to come and visit us sometime in January to see us in action!
Along with the FLL tournament, we also had a Jr. FLL Expo happening at the same time. Our two teams were the Mini W.A.F.F.L.E.S. from Kingston, and the GermBusters from Brampton Ontario. Many thanks to the GermBusters for making the trip to Kingston to join us. We hope to see them again next year!
Our good friend the blue bear showed up to help pump up the crowd. The blue bear got lots of hugs from young and old alike.
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All day teams spent their time programming and tweaking their robots to perform all of the required missions.
There were demonstrations for local news media…
…and lots of anxious moments at the game tables
…and then we danced…
….and danced….
…even the referees danced!
We danced until we got tired.
Thanks so much to the DJs from our high school radio station 91.9FM CKVI The Cave for making sure there were always great dancing songs ready to go!
The prizes were announced at the end of the tournament. We love to line up and give high fives to everyone as they collect their participation medals and their prizes.
Congratulations to Mrs. Dossett for earning the Adult Mentor Award
Congratulations to Wesley for earning the Young Adult Mentor Award
Congratulations also to the W.A.F.F.L.E.S., winners of the Champion’s Award, and Lancaster Roarbotics for qualifying for the Provincial competition in January. We wish you all the best in your preparations for the next level of competition!
Other Awards
Robot Design Award: Lancaster Roarbotics
Robot Performance Award: Lancaster Roarbotics
Core Values Award: The Rhinobots
Project Award: The Roborhinos
Volunteer Award: John Shaw, our head judge from OPG Nuclear
robotics is the gateway drug for our future!
Thanks to all of the K-Bots who helped to keep things running smoothly today, from set up and registration, timing, cuing, working with FLL teams, working with judges, driving our robot, monitoring practice tables, being referees MCs DJs and the blue bear, cooking lunch, moving tables, writing thank you cards, taking great photographs, operating video cameras, making slideshows, dancing with enthusiasm, talking with media, and helping with all of the clean up. Special thanks to Christine for organizing the entire event.
See you all again on Thursday when we’ll go to Transformix for a tour (time is not yet confirmed). Permission forms are needed to go on this field trip. Parent drivers would be greatly appreciated too–there are volunteer driver forms to fill out before driving.
Posted in Misc.
Tagged award, community, competition, dance, demo, First Robotics, FLL, food factor, media, mentors, thank you, WAFFLES
Our meeting today was quite a productive one! We’re planning the final details for our end of year party taking place June 4th from 2-4 pm at KCVI.
All K-Bots are expected to attend (wear your purple and your hats). Invite your family and friends to come and see the progress we made during our 6 week build, and hear the stories of competition. We’d like to thank families for supporting all our our team members with dinners and carpools and lots of smiles this past season. Parents, come celebrate with the rest of the extended K-Botics family!
We’d like to recognize the contribution of our mentors who dedicate 6+ weeks of their life to build season and beyond. Mentors, please feel free to invite family and friends to see what you’ve been up to when you’re not at home.
The financial support of our many sponsors is what makes our build season possible. This year we required more money to get to the Championships, and our sponsors stepped in and helped make that possible. We have extended invitations to all of our sponsors to join us on June 4th and we hope that many will be able to attend and see the amazing things that are done with their support.
Over our 3 years we have certainly build a strong foundation upon which we will continue to build for many years to come.
Posted in 2011 Logomotion, Fun
Tagged award, Chairman's Report, First Robotics, FRC, Logomotion, mentors, sponsors, thank you
What a day it was! We played two games this morning, and ended up in a great spot before alliance selection. Our minibot was still giving us trouble, but we kept working hard to perfect the deployment. Unfortunately it never made it up the pole in a match.
During alliance selection we were assured a spot as a captain, but were selected by the fourth alliance captain team 1305. We invited team 3541 to join us on our alliance.
purple and full of spirit!
We played well during the match, dominating the tube scoring, but we were plagued with minibot issues once more, and were eliminated at the quarter finals.
alliance selection
It is such fun to be at a competition with our rookie friends the Cyberfalcons team 3710. They made an impression on everyone as the strongest defense bot by far. They were able to push around the best of the best without racking up penalty points. Their skill and strategy won them the admiration of everyone around. They were picked 8th overall–an impressive feat for a defense bot. Along with team 2634 and 3161 they put up a great fight against the first seeded alliance (and eventual champions 2056, 781, and 1547).
Being eliminated in the quarter finals was disappointing, but we had lots of time to get our robot and pit packed up. We cheered on team 1114 and 610 (some of our mentors come from those teams). The semis and the finals were exciting and high scoring matches!
Awards are given out after the competition ends. Before awards, a prize was drawn from all of the students who filled out an online evaluation of the competition. We were so excited that a K-bot won! Congratulations Jacob. We know you will enjoy your new awesome laptop!
The Cyberfalcons took home the Judges award for all of their hard work. We are bringing home more hardware and medals too! We won the Engineering Inspiration award which recognizes our work and our influence on our community and how we promote science and technology. We got high fives from all of the judges, and hugs from our team. This award qualifies us for the World Championships in St. Louis!
See you there Morgan Freeman!
K-Botics is meeting Monday after school to unpack, organize, and build a crate for our robot. The shipping deadline is Tuesday, so we need all hands on deck!
Posted in 2011 Logomotion
Tagged award, Cyber Falcons, First Robotics, FRC, GTR, Logomotion
It was an early start this morning! We learned a few things during breakfast….It’s possible to feed 46 people bagels in half an hour as long as you have many many bagels, many many toasters and a lot of cooperation. We only blew one fuse in the process!
all of us are feeling a bit blurry before 7AM
We got to the Hershey Center early enough to get our favourite seats in the stands. Our scouts are keen to see all of the action, so reserving the prime seats is a priority!
Between matches, we were able to show our spirit by cheering and dancing and being generally excited about the competition. It’s lots of fun to watch your robot do AMAZING things! Other robots are doing some pretty amazing things too. The competition is pretty challenging.
Here we are attempting to score an ubertube in autonomous mode. We got pretty good at it over the course of the day! Some of the other teams can reliably score not only one, but TWO ubertubes! It’s fantastic to see.
Between matches, our robot gets worked on by our expert pit crew. It’s pretty crowded and busy in there. Judges and safety officials, robots, mentors, students, families and friends are all milling about, looking around, repairing robots, changing batteries, lining up for matches, strategizing with alliances etc. The pit is a fun place to visit, specially when the robot is working well.
This morning our Chairman’s team did a great job with their presentation. They explained to judges all about what we do that makes our team special, how we work to get others interested in science and technology, and how our team is building a strong foundation for the future.
Our excellent lunch plan was a success today. Thanks to Gord for organizing the sandwich run! We had a tailgate party in the parking lot.
Our matches went really well today. We won 5 and lost 3, some were really close games! We have two more games tomorrow in the morning before alliance selection begins. At the end of the first day we’re happily sitting in 8th place, and we’re excited to announce that we won the Innovation in Control Award sponsored by Rockwell Automation.
After dinner our scouts gathered with the Cyberfalcons to discuss our top 24 list for alliance selection, and the minibot team got to work on more modifications to the deployment system. We’re looking forward to seeing it work tomorrow morning.
Posted in 2011 Logomotion
Tagged award, Chairman's Report, competition, Cyber Falcons, First Robotics, FRC, GTR, Logomotion, scouting
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