The RoboBees are in the news!
 

The RoboBees, FIRST Robotics Team 836, were featured in a segment of WJLA's news coverage this past week.

The team helped build around 60 bikes for the St. Mary's Toys for Tots in under 2 hours!

For more information about the St. Mary's County Toys for Tots or to help with the cause, visit their website.

The RoboBees are a FIRST Robotics Competition Team based at the Dr. James A. Forrest Career and Technology Development Center in Leonardtown, MD. For information or to become a sponsor, please visit www.robobees.org.

Re: The RoboBees are in the news!
 

Great Job, RoboBees!
So, how much time did it take per cycle? At two hours, and 60 cycles, that means 20 minutes/cycle, if building one at a time! Were you guys doing something like an assembly line?
Anyways, Great Job and keep up the work :D
BTW, your site loads fast :D

Re: The RoboBees are in the news!
 

We had 25 students and five mentors working. Each bike was assembled by one to three people in a team, passed on to be filled with air at one of two designated filling stations, then put in line for quality assurance by another group of students. It worked great! Now, if only we were as efficient at robot building... ;)

Re: The RoboBees are in the news!
 

Yeah. If there was a set structure/design of a robot to build, we students, could manufacture it via a mini assembly line.

Re: The RoboBees are in the news!
 

Great idea for volunteering. If you don't mind me asking did you guys purchase all the bikes?

Re: The RoboBees are in the news!
 

Congrats RoboBees! You guys are a class act all around. Hope we get a chance to visit in 2014. Best of luck with the season!

Re: The RoboBees are in the news!
 

I was in line returning something while I typed that reply. I forgot to say, "Thanks!". In addition, I take no credit for our site, but its simplicity probably has something to do with its speed! We are using a home-brew CMS that has been evolving since the website mentor designed it as a student on the team 6-8 years ago!


The local chapter of Toys for Tots purchased the bikes through monetary donations and community sponsors. We were approached this year by Toys for Tots and asked if we would be able to provide some much-needed assistance in assembling the bikes. Their volunteers collect hundreds of toy donation bins from around the county and wrap the gifts prior to the December 22nd deadline.

Our quality assurance team made sure that they kept up the good work throughout the day. Of the bikes, we had one tire with a hole, 2 bikes with irreparable front fork damage, and one or two that had frame damage and would not fit together. I was really impressed by our students' can-fdo attitude when faced with these damaged bikes, and we were able to mend two :] . Unfortunately, we had to send some of our repairs back to the store as they did not stack up to our QA requirements :(


Thanks, John! Stop by our pit anytime if you see us!