Spartabots.

What makes you think of robots? Metalwork, coding, zip ties, legos? When I think of robotics, I think of the great times I’ve had with my wonderful teammates. From almost making it to states (twice) to making blue and gold zip tie hats to attempting to learn some code, I have truly had some amazing times with my lovely teammates. This year, we had an awesome season. We received the Judge’s award, which means our team stood out during team judging. You could also say we received an award for being awesome. We placed second at our last competition of the season, but unfortunately we did not make it to states. There is always next year and new possibilities. As of last year, we pick a yearly theme and design spirit wear around it. Last year, our theme was Harry Potter, and this year our theme was zipties. We had zip tie name tags and zip tie hats for the competition. We even had a team bonding night, and we ziptied the entire team together. I don’t recommend doing that again, but it really did help with our team dynamic.

This years FTC challenge was called Relic Recovery. The main way to earn points was to stack brown and gray blocks in designated patterns. Other ways to score points included knocking off the opposite colored wiffle ball or jewel in autonomous mode and balancing on the balancing stone during the last 30 seconds of the game. It's harder than it seems and it takes focus and practice.

At the beginning of each school year, the team divides up into three sub-teams. The sub-teams are build team, coding team, and design team. Each group has either a captain or a set of co-captains. The build team work really hard to design the robot, and later builds it. Building the robot is a vital part to our success. Coding team codes the robot. They put life and love into it. This year the team decided to take on a new challenge: mecanum wheels. Mecanum wheels are difficult to assemble and the coding is even more complicated, but they have serious advantages to them. They can strafe, which is great advantage with time constraints in the competition. The design deals with many things including spirit wear, t-shirt design, the design of the robot, fundraising, and documenting the process of everything.

To wrap up, we had an amazing season this year. I would like to thank all of the great Spartabots for making it an enjoyable experience. We worked hard, played hard and did their our very best. I would like to give a huge thank you to Mr. Gallo for guiding us throughout the year. We could have not done it without him. He is our mentor and our guide. His support and endless hours of patience is one of a kind.

We will continue to do our best next year and we could always use more dedicated Spartabots on our team. Come and join us if you are into coding, zip ties, innovation, and loads of team fun.