FRC 238 June 2018 Newsletter

FIRST Robotics Competition Team 238
2018 June Newsletter

End of Year Celebration & Senior Graduation

This June, we had a celebration to close out the season and to celebrate our seniors. In addition, the mentors came up with different “robie awards” for all the students on the team to recognize fun season achievements. As a gift to all the seniors, we presented a graduation cord with a 238 charm to signify their time on the team. We also had cake after where all the seniors cut the first piece together. On June 9th, 6 of them graduated from high school and we are excited to see them succeed in the future.

Demos:

McLaughlin Middle School

We visited McLaughlin, one of our feeder schools, and presented to the students how cool robotics actually is. We had some very interested students. As always they were amazed when we drove around our robot and wanted to know how to get involved. Some students that wouldn't be attending Memorial also got some information on what FIRST team they could join at the school they would be attending the following year.

Bosch

We presented to a large crowd while visiting our Crusader Level Sponsor Bosch. They were very impressed on how far we made it this season and when we showed them our robot they knew why we were such a powerhouse this year. We discussed our plans for the future and how valued our partnership really is! Thank you Bosch!

Southside Middle School

At Southside we had the chance to demo to a couple students, we demoed Catwoman's speed, elevator, intake, and controls. We really just showed how fast Catwoman could move and we showed how high Catwoman’s elevator could go. We showed the students our awards that we won in 2018 with Catwoman like our Boston and Granite State wins. We feel we made a positive influence on most of the students that we presented to.

Marmon Aerospace & Defense

We visited Marmon Aerospace, one of our newest sponsors, to view what they did in the STEM field and we were all amazed. They showed us how they make cabling for rockets, airplanes, etc. and their machinery was amazing. Before the tour, we showed them our own machine Catwoman! They were pretty amazed that we could build such a sophisticated machine as only high school students. We are excited to grow this partnership with them! Thank you Marmon!

Summer Projects:

Over the summer, Team 238 plans on improving our past robots so they can be used for demos and offseason competitions. Another main activity we are doing is training our underclassmen and ensuring the team doesn't lose any skills. One project we are working on is Photoshop training to expand our knowledge. To do this, we want to design graphics for our trophy case in the school. To recruit new students, we have been reaching out to our middle schools showing how cool our team is. In order to keep them interested, we have decided to update our new student on-boarding process.

Click to view a great segment on Dean Kamen featuring our team!

HBO Special:

During build season we were recorded and interviewed for an HBO special and our team was highlighted for the robotics segment. The film crew, with Soledad O'Brien, visited our shop where we were building and machining parts and working on CAD or newsletters. During competition season we were also filmed at our North Shore District Event where they captured the excitement of matches, the pits and scouting in the stands. Thank you HBO for this opportunity!