Build Season Week #5

FIRST Team 1403 Cougar Robotics Newsletter Build Season: Week 5   In past years, Team 1403 has found itself in a duel against time. They have often rushed to finish the robot, and have paid the price during competitions. This year however, the situation was different- the team making extraordinary progress during every week of the build season. Week Five was also another week of amazing productivity, with the various subteams utilizing their knowledge to Read more

Build Season Week #4

FIRST Team 1403 Cougar Robotics Newsletter Build Season: Week #4   Team 1403 has worked vigorously throughout the course of the Build Season. Week Four was no different, with the mentors stressing to the students the importance of making progress with the limited time remaining. Progress was delayed due to some testing difficulties, however, the team has kept its composure during these times and worked in unison to come up with solutions. Robot Manager Aamhish Read more

Build Season Week #3

FIRST Team 1403 Cougar Robotics Newsletter Build Season: Week 3 Build season is halfway done after the conclusion of Week 3. Over the course of  this week, Team 1403 has made great progress on all aspects of the robot and logistics areas of the team. Members are excitedly awaiting the competitions and look forward to completing the robot. This week, Robot Manager, Aamhish R, formed another set of goals, including finishing the robot by Wednesday Read more

Build Season Week #2

FIRST Team 1403 Cougar Robotics Newsletter Build Season: Week 2 Following the success and productivity of Week One, the sub teams on Logistics and Robot side continue to make progress throughout Week Two. Like Week One, many hours of hard work and dedication were put in by members of the team. As mentor Mr. Bernardis concluded, “Overall, the mentors were impressed by the great effort the team had put as well as the progress made.” Read more

Build Season Week #1

FIRST Team 1403 Cougar Robotics Newsletter Build Season: Week 1 Once the Power Up competition theme was announced at Kickoff, Team 1403 began productively working on the robot—from coming up with robot design ideas to building mechanisms. On Sunday, the Strategy team presented the game rules in the manual to the members of Team 1403. At this meeting, members of the team noted important details to improve our team’s strategy. Overall, the Sunday meeting was Read more

Kickoff

12th Annual Kickoff On January 6th in 2018, after months of hard work during preseason, thirty-six teams gathered in Skillman, New Jersey at Montgomery High School for the 12th annual FIRST Kickoff. The students anxiously waited for the reveal of the new Robotics challenge, streamed live from New Hampshire.   Prior to the official broadcast being streamed, the students were able to different workshops specializing in various aspects of robotics: Pneumatics, Gearboxes & Transmissions, Inventor, Read more

2017 Holiday Food Drive

Thank you to all who donated items for the food pantry! Our fellow robotics members dropped off all the goods this past week at the Trenton Soup Kitchen in time for the holidays! The results of the Holiday Food Drive are in and the Mechanical sub-team won! This earns them a bagel breakfast on our first Saturday meeting. We had a total of 302 items donated to the drive which greatly benefited the people of the Trenton Soup Kitchen. The team members who went down to donate Read more

2017 Cougar Class #5 – PCAN Advertising

TEAM 1403 COUGAR ROBOTICS PROJECT/ACTIVITY: PCAN Advertising Date: 12/06/2017 Where: Montgomery High School Number of Students: 40 Number of Mentors: 5 Action Items: poster boards and some markers. Impact on Team: Action Items: tape measure, coffee cup-, rubber ball, Masonite, skewers, pipe cleaners, large straws, small straws, scissors, glue guns, paper, pencils, tape This Cougar Class, we had a different mentor lead the event. Mr. Murthy, one of the parents of a prominent member, gave a Read more

2017 Cougar Class #4 -Technology & Machine Design

TEAM 1403 COUGAR ROBOTICS PROJECT/ACTIVITY: Technology & Machine Design Date: 11/29/2017 Where: Montgomery High School Number of Students: 40 Number of Mentors: 5 Action Items: straws, Popsicle sticks, skewers, paper, hot glue gun Impact on Team: At the commencement of the class, mentor Michael Leicht discussed aspects and impacts of technology. He talked about how technology has developed in many different industries and showed examples. Then, he gave a scenario in which a company could choose Read more

2017 Cougar Class #3 – Building Free Standing Tower

TEAM 1403 COUGAR ROBOTICS PROJECT/ACTIVITY: Building Free Standing Tower Date: 11/15/2017 Where: Montgomery High School Number of Students: 45 Number of Mentors: 5 Action Items: cups, rubber bands. paper bag, poster paper, hot glue gun, straws, Popsicle sticks Impact on Team: To begin the Cougar Class, Michael Leicht taught the team members about how to determine the plan for constructing a robot, or a structure. Based on a set of rules and guidelines given by Read more