FRC 6004 f(x) Robotics and 6242 Chaos Theory | 2024 Build Thread

[David_IsMe]

Overview

We are excited to announce that this season, Team 6004 is making a build thread in the style of Open Alliance! As part of this initiative, we will be sharing our journey through the build and competition seasons with full transparency. From our design process to our marketing strategies, we believe that openness and collaboration are key to helping the FRC community grow stronger together.

Our team will be posting regular updates on:

• Design and Prototyping: You’ll see how we approach robot design, what works, what doesn’t, and how we improve through iteration.
• Programming and Strategy: We’ll share our coding challenges, strategic decisions, and game plan developments along the way.
• Marketing and Outreach: Behind the scenes, we’ll offer insights into our efforts to promote STEM in our community, recruit sponsors, and engage with our fans.

Whether you’re a veteran team looking for new ideas or a rookie team just getting started, we hope our content will inspire, educate, and contribute to the amazing spirit of FIRST Robotics.

Follow our progress and feel free to reach out—we look forward to collaborating with teams around the world!

Rookie Team

This year we have started a new non-profit to expand our reach as a robotics program outside of just f(x). We are excited to announce the creation of rookie team now 6242 as they will compete as a new veteran team since we share a build space, mentors and other resources. This thread will try to cover the activities of both team as we were inspired by FRC 4795 Eastbots and their affiliate 4861 Beastbots read more here:

@Reese

For the first time this season, we will be competing with two FRC teams. More details on the team split and rationales are in last year’s thread , but the highlight is that we are organized as one team building two robots. All students and mentors are on both teams and are able to contribute to either robot, but each has a different focus. Beastbots will be building a stock robot like an Everybot, and is designed to provide primarily younger students and new mentors with fundamentals of engineering and smaller-scale leadership training in a lower-stakes environment. Eastbots will be faster-paced, and more focused on building an advanced, competitive robot. Both teams will be competing at the same district events, but we will only enter a maximum of one into District or World Championships, depending on qualification status.

Build Space

This year we will have an external build space from the school we were based out of, we are in the process of moving and outfitting the space for our needs and we will post here about it as well. Below are some pictures showing the space before our first even here this past weekend shout out to all the team who came out to support our new space! The space is approximately 7500sq ft we plan to have a full FRC field as show as well as an FTC field. We are planning to host both FTC and FRC scrimmages. Currently we have no tools in the space as we only started the move last Friday.

Project F.O.X.

Project F.O.X. (Focus On deXterity) is a project our team started to undertake around 18 months ago. We began the development using an old FLL Ev3 kit to prototype a robot that could trace letters, shapes and numbers to help/allow students with dexterity issues to be able to learn and feel the mechanics behind the shape, letter or number. Our most recent iteration uses an M-Bot as the base with 3D printed parts to make a hand hold, we settled to use a foam semicircle for the hand hold as it makes a soft place to rest the hand that utilizes little to no finger movement.

Socials/ Resources

Website
Instagram
Facebook
X formerly Twitter
YouTube
GitHub (Will change to season specific)

[David_IsMe]

Sorry for the long winded post this is not all of the updates, but this is all I will write at this time, I hope to finish a part 2 sometime on/ before Wednesday.

Open House / Family Meeting – October 2nd

Join us for an open house as we kick off the season and introduce our new team members, plans, and upcoming adventures! This is the perfect time for families, sponsors, and community members to learn more about our mission and goals for the season.

f(x)CTBrochure.pdf (721.8 KB)

Rumble in the Roads 9 – October 26th, Virginia

We’re excited to be competing in our very first offseason event alongside our partner teams! Rumble in the Roads is a great opportunity to put our skills to the test and start preparing for the new season.

Steam Scream Halloween Event – November 2nd

Join us for a spooky, fun-filled evening! Activities include:

• Pumpkin Chunking with robots
• Robot Matches
• Pumpkin Carving
• Costume Contest
  This event is open to all ages and is sure to be a blast!

Christmas Party for FIRST Teams – December 14th or 21st (Date TBD)

We’re hosting a holiday celebration for ALL FIRST teams! Come enjoy some festive fun, connect with fellow teams, and celebrate the season together.

2024 Kickoff Event – January 4th

We’re hosting an epic Kickoff event this year, including:

• A full field setup ready within 48-72 hours of Kickoff
• Hands-on workshops to help teams hit the ground running
  We’re excited to welcome all teams to come and get a head start on the new season!

Fundraisers/ Grants

We are excited to kick off our fundraising efforts for the season! Our Popcorn Fundraiser is now live, featuring 2 bags of fresh kettle corn for $20. Every purchase helps fuel our team’s mission to innovate and compete! [Link here]

In addition to fundraising, we’ve been hard at work writing grants, applying to organizations such as DOD STEM, Boeing, Leidos, BAE Systems, TE Connectivity, Gene Haas, NASA First-Year Team Grant, John Deere, and Duke Energy.

Each of our teams has also applied for sponsorships from FRC vendors and f(x) Robotics, and we’re thrilled to announce a new partnership with Last Anvil Innovations. We hope to support Chaos Theory, 6242’s West Coast Products-sponsored build of the WCP Competitive Concept.

Thank you to all our sponsors, partners, and community members who are helping make this season a success!

Chaos Theory Updates

We’re proud of our partner team, Chaos Theory 6242, as they work to rebuild Team 6004’s original robot concept in preparation for the Rumble in the Roads event in October! The team has come a long way—our new students have learned so much about robot design, and they’ve already started making their own modifications to the build and wiring.

They’ve even begun remapping the controls to tailor the robot for their own drivers! This hands-on experience has been invaluable for our team’s growth, and we can’t wait to see the finished product in action.

Stay tuned for updates as we gear up for competition!

Closing Statement

Stay tuned for more details on each event, and feel free to reach out if you have any questions! We look forward to seeing everyone and making this a season to remember!

[David_IsMe]

T-minus 2 Weeks to Rumble in the Roads!

With just 2 weeks to go until Rumble in the Roads on October 26th, both Team 6004 f(x) Robotics and Team 6242 Chaos Theory are in full preparation mode!

6004 has wrapped up some final polishing on the robot, including:

• Replacing the front chassis rail with steel for added durability
• Fixing wiring issues that showed up at DCMP in April
• Cleaning and regreasing all gearboxes to ensure smooth performance

6242 has taken inspiration from 6004’s original prototype and made some minor tweaks to improve the note path, and now they’re also ready to rumble!

Starting tomorrow, we’ll be jumping back into driver practice and fine-tuning our autonomous modes to get both teams fully prepared for competition.

Stay tuned for more updates as we count down to Rumble in the Roads!