About
Each year we begin our build season in January following the official Kickoff event. Over the course of the next six weeks, thousands of man-hours are put into the design, construction, programming, strategy, and testing of our robot for the year. At the end of the build season the robot is packaged and shipped to FIRST headquarters where it spends the month of February. Come March, the competition season begins, and our team attends the UTC New England Regional in Hartford, CT, held at the new Connecticut Convention Center, to compete against other teams vying for a spot at the International Championships at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA. In addition to participating in the FIRST Robotics Competition, Bobcat Robotics also has a FIRST Tech Challenge team which attends ConnVex.
To the students involved, FIRST is more than just a robotics club, an engineering competition, or a sport. It is a learning experience to everyone involved in it, and teaches young adults valuable career lessons in the field of engineering. It offers a chance to expose the field to students who might otherwise not pursue their interests in it. FIRST gives students an unmatchable experience by allowing students to be self-directed learners while still receiving guidance as needed from engineers who work in the industry. The value of the program is immeasurable to not only the students, but also to every single mentor who gets involved in the process and gets to share their expertise with others and provide themselves as a role model.
About FIRST
FIRST stands for “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology”, and is a multinational, non-profit organization. It was founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway Human Transporter. He aspires to make math, science, engineering, and technology more appealing to kids in the way that sports are today. Each year the FIRST Robotics Competition, FIRST Lego League, and FIRST Vex Competition are held to promote science and engineering to kids all around the world.
The FIRST Robotics Competition is an exciting multinational competition held yearly. It teams professional engineers and young students together in order to provide a solution to the given problem each year. The program promotes cooperation between everyone in it, and is intensely competitive while maintaining the concept of Gracious Professionalism. Each team designs, builds, and programs a robot capable of performing the specified task at the various competitions held around the world. This year, the competition has reached 132,000 high school students on 1,300 teams over 30 competitions, ranging from Brazil, Canada, Israel, Mexico, Netherlands, the U.K., and almost every U.S. state. The FIRST Lego League also reached thousands of middle-school aged students, and the FIRST Vex Competition is in its second year, which is no longer a pilot program.
FIRST is an inspirational experience that changes the lives of people who gets involved in it. It provides high-school students with a chance to work with professional engineers and learn how to deal with real life situations. The ideals behind engineering and technology are shown through it and give students a chance to learn and develop skills. The end-results of it includes lots of focused brainstorming, real-world teamwork, dedicated mentoring, project timelines, and deadlines.
About This Year
Our Team
From our success last year comes many welcome surprises. The student size has increased to almost 80 students, but, unfortunately, we lost a few of our engineers in the process. We will still meet for three hours each Wednesday and Thursday during the build season, and for seven hours on Saturdays in addition to any other hours put in off the clock by students and engineers. In the end, thousands of man-hours will be put into our robot creation which will be competing in Hartford and Atlanta this year.
The Game
The game this year is called “FIRST Overdrive”. The objective of the game is to drive around the field to knock off 40″ inflated trackballs. They can be passed over or underneath a 6′6″ overpass. At the end of the 2 minute 15 second period, teams can score bonus points by having the trackball on top of the overpass.
This year’s game introduces a new mode into the game. Instead of a fully autonomous mode at the beginning of the match, there is a new “hybrid” mode. In the new mode, you are able to control the robot through an infrared sensor located on the robot. The infrared sensor is used by the ‘Robo-Coach’, who is located on the edge of the field.
Our Robot
Our robot is finished and is waiting for competition. We have a few pictures here: http://bobcatrobotics.org/2008ship/.
Mentors
Thanks to the many engineers from UTC Corporations, Gerber Scientific, and other local companies, our team has many engineers who help students learn engineering concepts and apply them to real world problems. We wouldn’t be able to consistently build the robots and compete as we do without their support, and they make a huge difference in everyone they work with through their willingness to teach.
Student Leaders
The other key group of people that helps hold the Bobcat together are the student leaders who have been with the team and through their time here, gradually fallen into positions of student leadership where they are able to help new team members learn skills and become used to the way things operate. Although every student on the team contributes a great deal to the success of the team, these individuals are the ones who makes sure everything runs smoothly and things get done.
- General Team – Colin H
- Controls – Andrew M
- Mechanical – Sam H
- CADD – Alex M
- Video/Media – Chris J
About This Site
BobcatRobotics.org Version 4
This is the new site for the 2008 Bobcat Robotics team. The public facing site is only a small part of the entire infrastructure this year. Most of the time was spent on our internal sign in system that we are now using at our meeting to track people’s hours and allow them to communicate effectively with other team members.
The public facing site is powered by WordPress and the theme is a custom theme developed by Jake A.
Awards
2008
- CT Website Award
2007
- National Championship Winner
- Newton Division Champions
2006
- CT Regional Champion
- PA Regional Champion
- Galileo Division Champion
2004
- CT Website Design Award
- PA Regional Champion
- PA Xerox Creativity Award
- Galileo Division Finalist
2003
- CT Regional Finalist
2001
- Galileo Division Champion
- Clarkson University Part. Scholarship
- MI2 GM Industrial Design Award
- CT Regional Champion
1999
- PA Xerox Creativity Award
- N1 Delphi “Power to Simplify” Award
1998
- N1 #1 Seed
- N1 Motorola Quality Award
- NE Motorola Quality Award
1996
- NE Best Offensive Round
Events We’ve Been To
2008
- Connecticut Regional (3/13/2008 – 3/15/2008)
- FIRST Championship (4/17/2008 – 4/19/2008)
2007
- UTC Connecticut Regional (3/15/2007 – 3/17/2007)
- FIRST Championship (4/12/2007 – 4/14/2007)
- New Jersey Regional (3/1/2007 – 3/3/2007)
2006
- UTC New England Regional (3/9/2006 – 3/11/2006)
- Philadelphia Regional (3/30/2006 – 4/1/2006)
- The Championship Event (4/27/2006 – 4/29/2006)
2005
- Philadelphia Regional (3/24/2005 – 3/26/2005)
- UTC New England Regional (3/10/2005 – 3/12/2005)
2004
- UTC New England Regional (3/18/2004 – 3/20/2004)
- Philadelphia Regional (3/25/2004 – 3/27/2004)
- The Championship Event (4/15/2004 – 4/17/2004)
2003
- UTC New England Regional (3/13/2003 – 3/15/2003)
- The Championship Event (4/10/2003 – 4/12/2003)
2002
- UTC New England Regional (4/4/2002 – 4/6/2002)
- The Championship Event (4/25/2002 – 4/27/2002)
2001
- 2001 UTC/New England Regional (3/1/2001 – 3/3/2001)
- 2001 National Championship (4/5/2001 – 4/7/2001)
2000
- New England Regional
- Nationals
1999
- New England Regional
- Nationals
- Philadelphia Regional
1998
- Nationals
- New Hampshire Regional
1997
- Nationals
- New Hampshire Regional
1996
- New Hampshire Regional
- Nationals
1995
- New Hampshire Regional