Welcome to Team 3161’s Offseason Build Blog!
Hi everyone! FRC Team 3161 - The Tronic Titans(https://team3161.ca) is excited to start our 2023 offseason build blog. This thread will inform you about our team’s offseason activities, outreach, build progress, and more.
While waiting for our new posts, feel free to check out our 2023 season build blog: (Tronic Titans 3161 Build Thread | Open Alliance 2023)
Hello everyone!
We are so excited to be back in the shop and starting the team up again. We have been thoroughly active during the off season and are trying our best to make good use of the weather through our outdoor outreach events before it gets even more chilly. We are preparing ourselves for our off season, Stemley and our FLL event that we are helping to host.
Outreach
We attended a number of different outreach events at some of our local schools / fairs, as well as many in-school team engagement activities.
At our local fall fair, we showcased the bot and connected with local businesses. We managed to engage kids by showcasing the intake of both the cubes and cones. We also brought our button maker and let the kids design and colour their own Team 3161 logo. We talked to parents about frc and also got them interested in the program at their schools
We also attended a local elementary school event where we did another outreach event similar to the previous one where we showcased the robot and spread awareness about the team. We connected with various students who would be interested in joining the team when they enter our school, as well as shared how . It was lots of fun and we can’t wait to attend again in the future.
Workshops
Just like most new school years, we advertised our team to all students and invited any new members who are interested in learning to join the team and attend our different workshops. These prepare them for the build season and allow them to gain the necessary skills they need in order to succeed on the team. We introduced them to what FIRST is and what being on the team is all about.
Our Electrical subteam has started working on wiring a practice chassis and learning all about the different connections and components to the electrical system. Electrical is an extremely important piece for a competitive robot and we hope to lay down all of the important skills now in order to ensure that everything is well organised in the future
(Poster students have been using to learn electrical)
The Mechanical subteam has spent time familiarisng students with different tools and machines. We want everything to happen as smoothly and safely as possible, so ensuring that all students know how to properly use all the different machines in the shop is extremely important. We have also introduced the concept of prototyping and design so that come build season all students will be prepared to input their ideas and contribute to the build processes .
The Programming subteam has also been doing a great deal of workshops. Team members are familiariisng themselves with all of the different details of what coding a robot is like and what skills they will need. They are preparing themselves for coding the practice chassis and getting the fundamentals down in order to code different aspects of the robot such as autonomous vs teleop.
Outro
Although this update was a bit short, I hope it was an enjoyable read. We have been spending time organising ourselves and preparing our new members. Thank you for reading, and make sure to check as we post more updates in the future and progress into the off season.
Hey everyone!
We wanted to update everyone on our off-season progress. We had so much fun at STEMley and wanted to share our experiences with the event, as well share our planning of the FLL Tournament.
STEMley
First off, special thanks to The Alpha Dogs and W.A.F.F.L.E.S. for inviting us into an amazing alliance that placed 3rd! It was an absolute blast to compete with you both and we couldn’t have asked for a better alliance. STEMley acted as a trial for our new members to get a taste of the competition experience and learn about what competitions are like. We made sure to give out lots of opportunities for them to be a part of the pit crew, strategy, and more importantly on the drive team. Everyone is now more aware of what competing is like, and what they could look forward to in the future once build season starts. .
After every 3 matches that we played, we rotated through drivers, operators, human players and technicians to let as many people as possible experience the positions . We also made sure to teach new members how to scout and the importance of having good data for alliance selections. Our new members are now much more knowledgeable about scouting and well-prepared for competitions in 2024.
Our bot from the 2023 season, Krios, was used throughout the competition. New members familiarised themselves with the bot by learning how the wrist functioned and the wiring involved. It was working smoothly until our 7th and last Qualification match, (match 30) where the lights to signal the pieces needed stopped working and one of the wheels stopped working as well. We were still able to win the match and proceeded to fix that immediately after the match finished.
Krios then worked smoothly until the semi-finals, where the wrist stopped working. Our strategy was to focus on scoring first a level 3 cube, then a level 2 cube, and then afterwards to pick up either cubes or cones along the way depending on what was needed. We had to divert our strategy to only cubes after the wrist broke, so while our options for scoring pieces became more limited we were able to contribute to the match. In total, we won six matches, lost six matches, and had no ties (6-6-0).
Finally, feel free to check out the photo album our media subteam put together for the event!
FLL Provincial Qualifier
This December, Team 3161 will be hosting the Oakville FLL Qualifying Event! . We are planning extensively to make sure this event runs smoothly, this includes training referees, educating volunteers about their specific duties pertaining to the role and constructing the FLL kits. At each meeting, we dedicate some time to teach the referees about the game rules. All members of our team have been strongly encouraged to volunteer, as this event is not only a great opportunity to inspire youth to get involved in STEM but also to work on communication and collaboration skills throughout the team.
We are starting to assign roles and make sure the responsibilities are distributed evenly amongst volunteers to ensure maximum efficiency throughout the event. We will be using the Friday before the tournament (the 8th) to set up the event so that we are prepared the following day to run it.
Thank you all so much for reading, please keep an eye out on the future for our updates on the FLL Tournament and our off-season progress.
