Last week we had our kickoff event and it was so entertaining! The game was finally revealed and we are looking forward to our 1st competition at Kettering University at the very end of February and beginning of March!

Here is the points our team can get this season:
Cross Hab Line (Level 1) 3pts
Coss Hab Line (Level 2) 6pts
Attach Panel (No points for null panels) 2pts each
Place in Bay 3pts each
Climb Platform (Level 1) 3pts
Climb Platform (Level 2) 6pts
Climb Platform (Level 3) 12pts
Earn 15 HAB bonus pts  1 Ranking Point
6 panels & 6 Cargo in Rocket    1 Ranking Point
Win                                   2 Ranking Points
Tie the match                   A Ranking Point


There are also awards our team can get as well from the following:
Sandstorm 1 (auto)
Sandstorm 2 (auto)
Hatch Panel
Cargo
(3) HAB Bonus
HAB Docking
A Complete Rocket
Win Match
Tie Match

Here is the Max amount of points we could get.
20 Hatches= 40pts
20 Bays= 60pts
Sandstorm= 15pts
HAB Bonus= 36pts
This means in a match, the max points is 151.


In other news, This week we worked on our business plan by talking about what we did in our past seasons and what we are looking forward to this season.

​

Another busy day for the Marauderbots!

The programming team has finally been able to start running code with the robot. While doing this, the build team is fixing problems as they arise. Their hard work is starting to come together!

Our business team has fully updated the Business Plan. 

The business and media teams worked to finish some smaller things like sponsor shoutouts and updating the website. 

The team is getting more excited and more stressed as bag day is coming closer. Our first event is only four weeks away! There is still a lot to do, but the Marauderbots are a group of hard working and dedicated students. Anything can be done in this team! 

This Saturday was a busy one!

The business team started out their day with editing the team's Business Plan. At the same time, Kennedy was designing our team t-shirts and logo (which look amazing, by the way!). As always, the build and programming teams spent the day in the Robotics room working on our bot. 

After lunch, Mr. Topping led us all outside to show us a big surprise the mentors had been hiding. We got our own personalized trailer!! After receiving a grant from the Ovid-Elsie Community Fund, we purchased an enclosed trailer for our bot. With the remaining money from the grant, Edgewraps wrapped it. It looks amazing, and it shows how much we've grown in our five years. 

This season's team captains were announced. Congratulations everyone!

Our Chairman's Award committee was selected. The Chairman's Award is the most prestigious award in FIRST. The winner is a team that judges decide is a good model for other teams to follow, so the team must be an example of everything FIRST values. A group of three students will present to a set of judges, and their presentation must include everything about our team and what we stand for. Good luck to the six students who will help prepare for this. 

On the build side of things, the lift mechanism was finished. The build team works together almost every day to meet the bot deadline, which is about six weeks from kickoff. 

Towards the end of the meeting, the full team got together to work on scouting for our events. 

These weekend meetings may be long, but they're very beneficial to the team. A lot of work can get done if the full team is working together in the same place and at the same time. 

The build team has been building the playing field and getting ideas for our robot this year.

The Marauderbots held the 2018 kickoff on January 6th at Ovid-Elsie High School. After watching the livestream that revealed what the 2018 game would be, we split off into teams to dig deeper into the game manual. The entire team then regrouped so all team members informed about the rules of the game. Next, game plans! Everyone in the team (students, mentors, and parents) took part in a long discussion on how we were going to make this season's bot. We decided on what our full team's priorities were and discussed gameplay. Then the actual design started, and our build team started their job about a week later. 
​
In the middle of kickoff, we held our annual 50/50 Raffle drawing. We want to give a huge thank you to everyone who bought a ticket for our team. Your support makes events like this possible. 

Thank you to everyone that joined us for kickoff! Power up!