January is when the First Robotics Competition season officially begins, but for Skyline’s Spartabots, the real work started months ago. Before the first design is wireframed, the team faces the challenge of building on the previous year’s lessons and turning inexperienced freshmen into competition-ready builders and programmers.
The build season is the period where Skyline robotics club (Spartabots) members begin designing robots according to the year’s First Robotics Competition guidelines. The task is often something that requires the robot to be agile, reactive, capable of picking up an object, and/or facing head-to-head with competitor bots. Before building, though, comes pre-season.
New members, commonly freshmen, join the Spartabots soon after the club fair, but even before that, the robotics club board is hard at work making plans, discussing potential changes to robot design from the year prior, and calling… very late at night.
One of the vice presidents, Sasha L., says that “[the] pre-season is where we teach our new members the skills they need to succeed in the season, and veteran members work on more advanced projects.”
Vice presidents Sasha and Warren have been working on a series of lessons to smooth the transition into the team for newer members. These lessons include tidbits about common parts used for the robot-building process and where to find all the tools in the often-confusing build room.
Robotics isn’t all work, however. Especially in the pre-season, members find community in the group. Robotics president Elliot HH., when asked about his favorite part of robotics, said the “best part is the people, the time we spend together, and the fun [that we have].”
Members often must spend hours together during competitions and general meetings, which can run from 3 pm to 9 pm. This makes it all the more common for strong bonds to form between the group.
As we move closer to the new season kick-off, robotics club members are anxious to discover this year’s event and put to use all the hard work and preparation that goes into the pre-season.
