Workshop Update & Team Life
Katherine Byunn-Rieder Gatorbotics is currently in our pre-season, a period of preparation, learning, and team bonding before our competition season in the spring. During pre-season, Gatorbotics’ team members are attending a variety of workshops such as a CAD workshop, electronics and pneumatics workshop, introduction to build, programming presentations, strategy basics, etc. Most recently in November, the Gatorbotics mentors and leads have led electives weekend. Electives weekend is a unique experience because many workshops are held and team members can choose to attend whatever workshops are of most interest to them. During electives weekend, Gatorbotics’ programming mentor, Kim, led a very interesting and informative workshop on motion profiling. Motion profiling helps the programmers make the robot quick and effective in the autonomous period of the game. Additionally, Patricia led a fun strategy workshop where she showed robots from former years and explained what strategies they used. She then determined whether our previous robots were unique, incredibly effective and/or especially creative. Another great aspect of electives weekend is that it grants everyone the opportunity to participate in team bonding over lunch. Even while we are all online, Gatorbotics has been getting it’s team together for team bonding. Not only during electives weekend, but also frequently on Fridays the team gets the chance to hang out together. As a whole, the team has been learning more and more skills and has also been getting to know each other better! Everyone is excited for the ‘build season’ to start this coming January. Entrepreunership Update Sophie Lamm Gatorbotics’ entrepreneurship team has been very busy preparing for the season! They are currently emailing sponsors, applying for grants, updating the website, making a social media plan, working on the merchandise, and doing outreach. The Entrepreneurship Team hasn’t been impacted greatly by shifting to distance learning, as most of the work is done online. However, students are still finding new ways for Gatorbtoics to be involved with the community. Since the start of the school year, Alexis (‘23), the Co-Community Outreach Liaison, and her co-liaison, Radha, have worked with Curieus, which is a group that works with the students at the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula, to lead a virtual robotics mini-course for the children: “It’s been so fun planning and teaching the 3rd-5th graders enrolled in our course, even though it’s been via Zoom!” Reflecting on the Entrepreunership team, Izzy (‘23) says, “With such a small team this year, Gatorbotics Entrepreneurship Team members have been given many opportunities to step up and take on substantial leadership roles. It has been an amazing and informative experience which I am extremely grateful for!” Meet The Leads (Part 2!) Sophie Lamm Q&A with Alexa Libbey ‘21 (Team Captain), Michelle Xu ‘21 (Build Lead), Linnea Leaver ‘21 (Programming Lead), and Sara Baudler ‘23 (CAD Lead) What is one fun fact about you? Alexa: I have a twin brother who I'm eleven minutes older than. Michelle: I make kombucha at home. Linnea: One fun fact about me is that in elementary school, I had a cloud obsession, and I used to hunt for rare types of clouds. Sara: My favourite boba drink is banana milk with honey boba, Boba Guys makes a pretty good one but now I make it at home because my family always has too many bananas on hand; it sounds weird but it's really good! What are you most excited for this season? Alexa: I'm excited to get to know the new members better :) Michelle: Bonding with the rest of the team & getting to know new members better Linnea: I’m most excited to get started programming this season! I’m hopeful that we’ll get to work on some cool features (like vision!) this year. Sara: Getting to know all the new members! I hope they have a good time! How has virtual Gatorbotics impacted you / what do you think of it? Alexa: While virtual robotics obviously isn't ideal or what many of us would love to be doing right now, I'm hopeful that we'll continue to find ways to connect our team. I think our team is in a tough spot right now; very few things that we can do virtually really match the feeling of being in-person or in a 'normal season' so it's difficult to try to find activities that come close. Michelle: I miss being able to see everyone in person & forming stronger intergrade connections. However, I'm still slightly optimistic for being able to return later in the season. Linnea: I think programming has been the least affected by virtual Gatorbotics so far, since most of the work we do already happens through the internet- however, I’ve been missing seeing everyone in person. Sara: I think it's definitely challenging because it's hard to connect with new people and you really can't learn how to use a mill or drill over Zoom. However, it's the best we can do given current circumstances and while I do recognize our privilege in even being able to do virtual robotics, I can't wait until we can get back to doing at least some stuff in person!
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Welcome Back!
Alexis Eskenazi Team 1700 is in the midst of pre-season, a period where members further their understanding of programming, game strategy, electronics, pneumatics, and more before entering our competition season. So far, Gatorbotics' leads and specialists have worked to mimic the experience of in-person workshops and trainings on Zoom. Two of our workshop leaders, Arya Nukala ‘23 and Sara Baudler ‘23, in addition to a few of this season’s new leads, Genia Goldwasser ‘22, Mukki Gill ‘21, Carson Schultz ‘21, Mea Heron ‘21, Mackenzie Friedman ‘21, and Masako Yang ‘22, have offered to share some of their virtual robotics experiences below. Behind the Scenes Update Carson Schultz Gatorbotics leads and team members have been hard at work adapting our pre-season programming and workshops to operate online. Team 1700 has been involved in Safety, CAD, Build, Programming, and Strategy workshops, as well as team bonding events and outreach initiatives. Gatorbotics began a new partnership with Curieus, a non-profit that provides STEM classes to students from under-resourced schools, and our team members have been hosting basic robotics and engineering workshops via Zoom. The Entrepreunership sub-team is busy researching potential sponsors and applying for various grants and awards to fundraise for our upcoming season. In terms of competition, FIRST has announced three options to engage with their program. The first option is a game design challenge in which teams engineer and create their own robotics game concept. Second is an innovation project that combines engineering and entrepreneurial skills as students design a solution and business model to address a real world problem. The final option, most similar to what a traditional FIRST competition would look like, is to build a robot that can complete a specific list of challenges. While we are not sure of which of the three games we will decide to compete in, Gatorbotics is committed to participating in the FIRST program this season. Q&A with Arya Nukala ‘23 Alexis Eskenazi Q: How long have you been a member of Gatorbotics and what team(s) are you on? A: This is my second year of Gatorbotics (I’ve been on the team since I was a freshman), and I’m on the build and programming teams! Q: What is your position on the team and what does that job entail? A: I’m the safety, pit, and spirit specialist, meaning that I’m in charge of making sure everyone is safe in the lab. I’m also in charge of boosting team spirit through activities. Usually the SPS specialist would be in charge of pit organization at competitions, but this season, it doesn’t look like I’ll be doing much of that. Q: What’s your favorite part of your job? A: Everything. I love bringing spirit to the team! Q: What workshop(s) have you led this year? A: I lead a safety workshop at the beginning of the year, which all members are required to go to. Q: How are the skills taught in your workshop applicable to our robot? A: The skills I teach help members stay safe and out of danger while manufacturing the robot. I make sure that our work environment is a positive and safe one. Safety is always the top priority! Q: How has your experience leading a workshop been over Zoom vs. in-person? A: I have not led an in-person workshop before, but I would say that my Zoom workshop was a little harder to put together. I made a virtual lab tour for everyone to watch (because we couldn’t actually walk around the lab together), which took a surprisingly long time to finish. But altogether, I love teaching and talking so I didn’t mind the virtual format very much! Q&A with Sara Baudler ‘23 Alexis Eskenazi Q: How long have you been a member of Gatorbotics and what team(s) are you on? A: I’ve been a member of the Gatorbotics build team for just over a year, since I joined freshman year. Q: What is your position on the team and what does that job entail? A: I’m the CAD Lead, which means I organize the team’s CAD and also do a little bit of CAD-ing. Q: What’s your favorite part of your job? A: I get to work with a lot of very cool people, and I also have the power to make our team’s CAD as beautiful as possible, which is always fun. Q: What workshop(s) have you led this year? A: I’ve led the CAD Workshop along with the CAD Specialists, Aramis and Claire. In our workshop, we introduced CAD to the rest of the team to get people started with the software. Q: How are the skills taught in your workshop applicable to our robot? A: CAD is a way to model the robot digitally, so the workshop teaches the basics of how to design and model robot parts. From there, we can analyze how they will work individually, and how they will all fit together as a whole. Q: How has your experience leading a workshop been over Zoom vs. in-person? A: Zoom sucks, but at least we’re keeping everyone safe :) Meet the Leads Alexis Eskenazi Q&A with a few of our team leads: Genia Goldwasser ‘22 (Inventory & Financial Lead), Mukki Gill ‘21 (Strategy Team Lead), Carson Schultz ‘21 (Entrepreneurship Team Lead), Mea Heron ‘21 (Project Management Co-Lead), Mackenzie Friedman ‘21 (Co-Archivist), and Masako Yang ‘22 (Co-Archivist)! Q: What’s one fun fact about you? Genia: I was born on Christmas! Mea: My favorite Trader Joe’s item is their dark chocolate peanut butter cups :) Carson: My favorite snack combo is goldfish and apples. Q: Outside of Gatorbotics, what do you like to do in your free time? Masako: I love being outside in nature! Mackenzie: In my free time, I like to read, listen to podcasts, and make friendship bracelets. Mukki: I love taking care of my 40+ plants, going on walks, and drinking coffee. Q: Describe Gatorbotics in one word. Carson: Passionate Genia: Inclusive Mea: Fun! Q: What’s your favorite part of Gatorbotics? Mukki: Obviously the free food....just kidding I love our community! Mea: I love working with other students to come up with designs or build a part. Carson: The team members - everyone is so nice and very dedicated to what they do. Q: How has Gatorbotics adapted to going completely virtual? Masako: We've been having online workshops, lab activities, and FRC has proposed two online challenges and one in-person challenge, and all teams can choose whichever they want to do. Genia: It’s been challenging, but the leads are doing an amazing job adapting and making sure the regular requirements are being done online. Mukki: It has been a lot of work for the leads, but we are really happy that we are still able to connect with our new members! Paly Scrimmage Update
Piper Lyons Last weekend, our team was invited to a scrimmage at Palo Alto High School, where we had the opportunity to meet other teams in the Bay Area and experiment with our robot. This event allowed us to learn a lot about the design of our robot, gave new members a chance to practice driving the robot, and was an opportunity for us to test our mechanisms and perfect our strategy. Ava, a Freshman on the team, was very eager to drive the robot, while others were more hesitant at first; however, everyone ended up having a lot of fun. We learned that our robot can shoot the “power cells” (which are basically dodgeballs) five to ten feet, and on top of that, we were able to fine tune the chain distance for driving our robot. While we gained a lot of knowledge during the event, the two days weren't all smooth – on Sunday afternoon, we encountered a problem with driving the robot, and finding a solution occupied Sunday afternoon. After two hours, we figured out that the bolt attaching the motor to the gearbox was too tight, preventing the motor from turning and keeping half of the drivetrain from working. Once we found out that this was the problem, we quickly fixed it, got back to the matches, and enjoyed the rest of the scrimmage. Team Member Feature: Christy Garreau Piper Lyons Christy, a senior on the team, has been a part of Gatorbotics for four years and is proud to say that she has enjoyed it all! Last year, Christy was the Electronics Lead, but she has switched roles to become the Build Lead this season. Her experience as both a member of the team and as Electronics Lead has helped her become a better Build Lead, as she understands all parts of what go into building the robot; she is able to better collaborate with other members, operate as a group, and delegate tasks. On top of Christy's excellent work on the technical side, she is an essential part of Gatorbotics's team culture. Christy has an upbeat spirit and works to keep everything interesting – whether while tightening bolts or milling, she always cracks a good joke. One of her favorite parts of robotics is the competitions, because they're an opportunity to hang out with the other cool people on the team while seeing what we have been working so hard on come to life. A last note from Christy (and her signature phrase): “Always eat metal.” Build Update Sophie Lamm Nearly a month into the build season, Gatorbotics’s technical teams have been very busy! This year, the challenge is Star Wars themed, where the robots have to store power cells (balls), shoot them into targets, rotate a color wheel, and hook onto a bar and levitate. At the beginning of the season, the team strategized about which parts of the challenge were top priority to maximize our points. We spend our hours in the lab in groups of 3-5 people to create prototypes using laser cut wood, the 3D printer, pulleys, shafts, bearings, and many other materials. We work together to discuss challenges, such as how to execute a mechanism. Anushka, a 10th grader, says that “one challenging part of being on the build team is the amount of time spent designing and planning.” However, she feels rewarded when her prototypes work out and are used for the final robot. No matter how many challenges they face, the team members look forward to “using the cool machines like the mill” (Finn, 9th grade) and “collaborating with friends to design and create something completely new and helpful for the team!” (Anushka, 10th grade). Entrepreneurship Update Sophie Lamm The Entrepreneurship Team meets every week to complete tasks such as emailing companies for sponsorships, designing new merchandise, and working on publicity, including a video project. Our newly-designed clothing gear will arrive soon, and the Entrepreneurship Team is excited to see our designs on the T-shirts and can’t wait to wear them. A freshman says her favorite part about the Entrepreneurship Team is “collaborating with members from different grades and practicing [her] business and communication skills.” Another freshman shares a similar perspective and says, “Entrepreneurship is a place where you can improve your writing, design, and marketing skills.” In second semester, members of the team look forward to working with members of the technical teams to continue to get to know new people and learn about their strategies. Finally, the Entrepreneurship Team is excited to continue to maintain a social media presence, take photos, and write newsletters. Team Member Feature: Charlotte Lamm Sophie Lamm Senior Charlotte Lamm is the lead of the Gatorbotics’ Strategy Team and is also a member of the Build Team. She joined the Gatorbotics team in her sophomore year because her friend, Lauren Byunn-Rieder (captain of the team), strongly recommended it. As a lover of art, Charlotte felt that robotics was a great way to practice her creativity through building robots. Now, she says her favorite part about Gatorbotics is the team spirit: “I think it’s really cool to work with other students to create something new.” Charlotte also enjoys prototyping in innovative ways. Her favorite tool is the lab is hot glue because "it’s super versatile and you can use it to prototype nearly anything." Outside of the workspace, Charlotte enjoys making art, playing music, hiking, and cooking. This semester, she looks forward to going to competition because the team is "going to be awesome." Thank You! |