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President
Vice President
Treasurer
Secretary & Communications Officer
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The Offseason
Mentors taught classes at our bimonthly meetings on everything from torque calculations to the basics of LabVIEW to elevator speeches to using Inventor.
We held an inter-team picnic with team 3954, 4-H Electrotechs, and invited them to attend Ag Progress Days wit us, which they did.
We again hosted 2 programming seminars for 4-H FRC teams across the state, and at least 6 teams sent students.
Community Events
Fatal Error really stepped up the community interactions in the 2013-2014 season! We attended Ag Progress Days and the Grange Fair again, sold jewelry & stick ponies at Arts Fest, and had the robot throw the first pitch at a State College Spikes baseball game. We went to 2 science nights, presented at the Friends' School, held a bake sale at Tractor Supply Co., and invited a Centre County Commissioner to one of our meetings.
Spikes Game
Science Nights
Arts Fest
Ag Progress Days & Grange Fair
A visit from a Centre County Commissioner
A cumulative video showing our outreach events up through the 2014 season
The Game
Aerial Assist consisted of robots working together on their alliances to score 25" diameter exercise balls through goals at the end of the field. High goals, large horizontal openings above the dirvers' station, were worth 10 points, and low goals, which were box shaped and in the corners of the field, were worth 1 point. The ball could also be tossed over a 6 foot high truss in the middle of the field for 10 points, and caught by another robot for another 10 points. What made the game unique was that, after autonomous period, there was only 1 game piece per alliance on the field at any one time, and teams could earn points by passing the ball between the different robots on their alliance--10 points for 1 pass, 30 points for 2 passes.
The Robot
Name: Divide Fault
Skills: Good inbounder and truss tosser
Robot 'Firsts'
The Season
Our FLL Teams
In the 2013 offseason, Fatal Error decided to expand 4-H robotics in Centre County by starting some FLL teams. FRC team members initially recruited kids and set up the teams, then mentored them throughout their seasons.
We started with inviting kids to an FLL open house through 4-H and homeschool networks, demonstrations of the Lego Mindstorms robots at our community events, and a Centre Daily times article (which you can read here).
The teams all had a lot of fun at a
scrimmage together late in the season...
As well as at the Southwest/Central PA
FLL championship,
where they each won an award.
We ended up with enough kids to start 3 teams: The Homeschool Happy Hurricane Hunters, the Hurricane Heroes and Heroine of Happy Valley, and the CLC Pumabots.
Competition
The team made a lot of improvements at competition in 2014.
First, we shared our computerized scouting system with 3 other 4-H teams, one of whom was the first pick of the 8th seed alliance. The program could assemble data and comments from multiple scouters and matches for an easy way to quickly look over any team's strengths and weaknesses, predict match scores between any set of teams based on scoring percentages and goalie skills, and ranked teams for a seamless way to make alliance selections. While the program had been used in 2013, this was our first time sharing it with the other teams, and several features were improved.
One mentor noted that the pits and scouting were much more student led this year: "In previous years, the drive team responded to adversity with non-constructive bickering, students in the pit would implement mentor designed solutions (and only after problems arose), and students in the stands would provide scouting and strategy input only when asked. This year, the drive team resolved issues calmly and constructively, students in the pit not only designed and implemented their own solutions but actively identified potential problems, and students in the stands would communicate strategic advice to the drive team with no mentor involvement whatsoever."
The robot seeded 26th and we were not picked for an eliminations alliance.
Major Partners
Junior Museum of Central Pennsylvania
2014 Graduates
Officer Positions:
2014-President
2013-Treasurer
Roles:
2014-Design, Mechanical, Chairman's, 2nd Driver
2013-Electrical, 2nd Driver
Rebecca
Nicole
Officer Positions:
2014-Secretary, Communications Officer
2013-President
Roles:
2014-Design, Mechanical, Pneumatics, Drive Coach
2013-Design, Drive Coach
2012-Mechanical
Connor
Roles:
2014-Mechanical
2013-Mechanical