Robbinsville High School saw a very successful, informative night on Thursday, January 19th, as it held the annual State of the Schools event. There were a multitude of clubs, organizations and school administration showcasing their accomplishments over the past few years. The common area was buzzing with people from all over Robbinsville, especially around the back corner, where Nemesis 2590 had their own booth. 

This had many aspects, with the center of attention being Nemesis’ 2022 robot, Iris. The drive team was able to show off their skills, allowing attendees to experience the robot's shooter through audience interaction, while catching cargo from the robot. While this occurred, other team members presented the ins and outs of Nemesis 2590. They educated the crowd about Nemesis’ operations, the team's various community outreach events, and more. The team gave out tattoos and tri-folds to those attending, while also showcasing posters detailing all aspects of our team. 

At the superintendent’s debrief on the current events of Robbinsville, Nemesis was honored to be mentioned many times. The dedication of Nemesis team members, the new 2023 game, and the team hosting its first district competition were all spoken about during the speech. Overall, it was a very successful night for Nemesis. The team was incredibly excited to share a year of accomplishments with the Robbinsville community.

On the morning of January 21st, members of Nemesis 2590 were up and ready to showcase their award-winning robot, Iris. Held at the local Robbinsville library and open to elementary and middle schoolers, the demonstration was meant to show the community what Nemesis is all about. After a brief explanation of our team and what we do, students were able to have hands-on interactions with Iris.

Firstly, lead members of Nemesis gave a presentation to the students and their parents. They described what FIRST is, how the FIRST Robotics Competition works, and different ways students could get involved in FIRST. Brief introductions were given about the FIRST Lego League, and a quarter-final match, with Nemesis 2590 playing, from the FRC Championship of 2022 was aired for the students. Described as “a chaotic mix of the NBA and BattleBots”, students were glued to their seats by the sight of six 120 pound robots racing around the arena. The match got students ready and excited to learn about Iris and see how the systems of the robot function.

After the presentation was finished, students were able to witness Iris’s use of its Limelight, a tool which can find the reflexive tape on a hoop in order for the robot to be able to aim itself, first hand. They were given a necklace with a strip of reflective tape on it, and the robot used its Limelight to track the tape on the students as they walked around the robot. Students were able to see the green light shined on them, and the precision of the Limelight’s tracking ability.

After demonstrating the Limelight, the turret was showcased to the students. Some students stood in front of the robot, and a ball was shot from Iris’s turret for the students to catch. This was the same turret and auto locking system used during the 2022 competition season, but the power was turned down so that the ball was catchable for students. While this was happening, other students were able to drive the robot and experience how the control system for Iris works.

Finally, students were given a chance to take a look at Iris, while being guided through the various systems by Nemesis team members. They were walked through the intake, cycling, and shooting systems on the robot, so that they could have a rudimentary understanding of how the different aspects of Iris works. This wrapped up the hands-on interaction for the students, and they were able to go home with an increased understanding of FIRST, with many now preparing to be on FLL teams for the next season.

Stomp rockets were flying everywhere outside the Tech Lab on December 4th, during Engineering Day. The 6th through 8th graders experienced a hugely successful half-day experience thanks to the members of Nemesis 2590. The team helped kids to cultivate their passion for STEM through multiple creative challenges. 

The day started off with an interactive presentation detailing the STEM challenge that the kids would complete. Team members of Nemesis 2590 presented them with the STEM challenge that they would complete -- creating rockets out of paper which would then be launched up into the air by stomping on a bottle.  The kids asked many questions about the task and could not wait to start making their own stomp rockets.

Then, students worked in small teams of 2-3 members led by a student on the team. They then used critical thinking, creativity, and assistance from Nemesis 2590 team members to create a rocket that would launch high into the air. After stomping the rocket and being amazed by how high they went, the kids moved on to the real challenge: finding a way to launch an egg with the rocket without breaking it. 

Guided by their student mentors, the campers, the group of students, were provided with a wide selection of materials that could possibly protect the egg which they put in the bag, along with the egg. After doing this, they attached the bags to the rockets and stomped on the bottles to test run their rocket. After successful test runs, the kids and their student mentors would face the pinnacle of their Engineering Day journey: The Big Bertha cannon, a compressor-based stomp rocket launcher. Big Bertha would launch the bottles to a height of 30-40 feet, which meant that it would be difficult to prevent the egg from breaking. Some teams managed to prevent fracturing the egg, but other groups needed to improve their designs. These groups went back to the tech lab to adjust their rocket, and by the end of Engineering Day, all groups were able to prevent the egg from cracking, successfully completing the challenge.

However, this STEM challenge was not the only opportunity offered to the 6th to 8th graders that attended Engineering Day. The kids were given the special opportunity to drive Iris, the 2022 competition robot that we used in the FIRST Worlds Championship. They had lots of fun launching giant tennis ball-like game pieces 8+ feet into the air to score in giant four foot wide cones. These kids were also given the opportunity to converse with members of Nemesis 2590 in order to gather information about the team. The kids were fascinated with how smoothly Nemesis 2590 ran, and we look forward to seeing these campers at next year’s Engineering day. 

Overall, Engineering Day was an astounding success, that left kids in our community desiring to engage in more STEM related activities. We thank all the campers who showed up to Engineering Day as we had a wonderful experience spreading knowledge of STEM to the community. It was a win-win for everyone involved, and we can't wait to see what next year's Engineering Day has in store! 

After much excitement and anticipation, FIRST kickoff weekend arrived on January 7th, with 2023’s newest challenge: Charged Up. Live from FIRST headquarters in Manchester, New Hampshire, this new challenge engaged and motivated the minds of Nemesis 2590. This year's challenge revolves around creating tech innovation to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all. After the challenge was finally announced, the team was launched into a state of excitement. The 2023 build season has officially begun!

After the team read through the game manual to gain full knowledge of the challenge, we split up into several brainstorming groups, all to examine the game and discuss how we could approach this feat.

During these breakout sessions, members used statistical analysis, ranking the actions that the robots could exhibit, in an effort to help with the design of the robot. Eventually, team members and mentors came to a consensus on each Robot action. Next up, each group would decide the rankings and strategy of these actions. An overall consensus was eventually reached and Day 1 finished with the team splitting up into small groups to review potential designs of the robot actions, with a focus on maximizing game piece placement efficiency.

On Day 2, after the ranking of tasks and strategies were decided, the “How’s” of  Nemesis’ approach were discussed. Team 2590 split up into their respective subteams, and eventually came to an agreement about how designs were to be implemented on the overall procedure. This rigorous challenge would require each and every member of the team to step up, and embrace the spirit of building a brand new robot for this year's challenge. 

Kickoff weekend for Nemesis 2590 had the team rally around a difficult challenge, through perseverance and resilience, the team was able to overcome the obstacles together. The team not only worked hard, but enjoyed every moment of solving problems collaboratively, from the rigorous discussions of strategy, to the designing of the robot, to how the team could utilize different mechanics for the robot. Creativity, teamwork and determination abounded this kickoff weekend, and we can think of no better way to start another exhilarating season with FIRST Robotics Competition.
 

    The FRC 2023 season has officially begun, and Nemesis has been busier than ever in the first week! The business team has been preparing for the annual Nemesis sponsor night by updating information and planning presentations to keep our sponsors informed. We have also been preparing and sending invites for this event. We are very excited to meet our sponsors and present all of our hard work so far.

    In addition, our team, sponsor, and outreach showcases are being updated with new photos and awards from our last 2022 season. Our new members are hard at work ensuring that these showcases are kept updated. 

    As a team, we are preparing workshops for First Lego League teams made up of elementary and middle school students. These workshops include a variety of activities designed to keep students engaged and excited about STEM. We are also getting ready for our State of the Schools event, a club fair where parents can see the accomplishments of our team; this keeps us connected to our community. In addition, our Chairman’s team is diligently working on their Impact Award presentation, putting in their best effort to win this prestigious award. We are also busy creating buttons with our logo and a 2023 game-specific design to pass out to other teams during competitions.

    Our logistics team has been finding restaurants for the FMA District Championship and are making sure that meals are being provided for our team during meetings. Our media team is currently in the process of using Photoshop to design labels for our showcases as well as updating the website with information and photos of newer members. Our finance team is looking and applying for sponsor grants, creating our business plan, and reconciling the bank account. Finally, we have been preparing for our robot demonstration in the local library as well as setting up an outreach event in collaboration with the Trenton Urban Promise organization. Overall, it has been a successful start for the business team in the 2023 season!

After the Covid-19 pandemic, Robbinsville High School is back to hosting the Nemesis classic, Discovery day. On the fifteenth and sixteenth of October, Nemesis hosted two , discovery day camps, managing to reach over One-Hundred students. Every year, the Nemesis FRC team hosts an event, open to elementary and middle school students, where the campers work with current team members to give them a fun and enjoyable introduction to STEM. The program has them complete a plethora of age-appropriate STEM challenges, meant to offer a stimulating, but fun, experience for the students.

This year, there were two challenges, each targeted at one of the two different participating age groups in the event. For the younger students (second through fourth grade), the challenge was to make a robot that could kick a ball and a goalie to stop the ball from reaching the edge of the table using Lego Technic and RCX motors. The older students, from fifth to sixth grade, were challenged to use similar NXT and Lego Technic pieces to create a robot that would “bowl” a wiffle ball into  a set of concentrated pins.Once they successfully completed this, they were challenged to code the robot using NXT software to bowl the wiffle ball with just the press of a button.

The campers were split into groups of 2-3 students, and were mentored by current members of the FRC team. The student-mentors assisted the campers in creating the best robots possible, while still understanding the science behind the challenge, and allowing the campers to maintain creative control. . Elan Ronen, a junior on the Software Team, mentored three young students. Elan admired his students’ ingenuity. “Their communication and perseverance struck me the most. They were experimenting with the robot design in the beginning, but after extensive amounts of collaborative brainstorming, they were able to come up with a design. The issue was that their design kept on breaking -- still, after many trials, these students were able to utilize the engineering design process to create a great design.” Elan, and many other student-mentors, found that recovering from adversity is what helped these students grow the most; “Whether it be through the build or code, the students never gave up.” Robert Gao, Design Lead, stated, “As time went on, they really got better at cooperating and problem solving together and I sort-of…just…got to sit back and watch. It was really cool.”

The young students were also given other opportunities to explore robotics. The campers  got a chance to look at a robot built by the local FLL team “IDK”. The campers also got a chance to drive Iris, Nemesis’ robot from the 2022 season. Students were amazed by Iris’ smooth movement, and complex design. The robot driving was a student favorite, with almost half of the campers doing the activity twice!

This discovery day played a significant role in introducing young students to robotics and STEM. It was great to see all the students leave with a smile on their faces, and a newfound love of robotics and STEM.

Another year, another Brunswick Eruption! That’s the off-season competition hosted by North Brunswick High School, this year on November 12th, 2022. This year, 51 team members were able to come, which was very good attendance! We had a lot of amazing experiences as well as some great takeaways, and plan to use them for future seasons! 

Before our first match, we learned that there wouldn’t be any warm-up matches since teams needed extra time for calibration. This meant that our robot, Iris, and our drivers wouldn’t be properly warmed up for the competition, and we wouldn’t know how Iris would behave during the actual qualification matches. We also had a few issues concerning the robot, such as Iris’s limelight mount being broken or the ball intake being jammed, which definitely proved to be problematic during the qualification matches. Nemesis's first match was the 2nd qualification match of the competition, but unfortunately, Iris wasn’t performing well, and we didn’t make most of our shots.In our 3rd match, however, things started to look up for Iris and the team. We made some good shots into the hoop, and rarely missed shots during that match. Even though our alliance lost that qualification match, we proved that we were able to stay in the game. During our 4th match, we got a few shots in and were able to go on the middle rung during the endgame. Nemesis ended the qualification matches with a rank of 8th place (out of 35).

After the qualification matches, it was time for the alliance selections! Nemesis chose teams 1155 (SciBorgs), 102, and 2601 (Steel Hawks), based on our scouting, which is when team members take notes on other teams’ robots’ performance, and everyone did a great job with that, even the inexperienced rookies.

Finally, it was time for the much-anticipated quarterfinals! Our alliance, the blue alliance, was facing off against the red alliance, which was made up of teams 3142 (Aperture), 5895 (Peddie Robotics), and 533 (The PSIotics). We made shots one after another, trying our hardest to recover from our rough start, but in the end, we lost to the red alliance 2-1 in the best of 3 rounds.

After many tough and challenging matches, Nemesis persevered through them all. With the help of our fellow alliance members, we were able to beat teams left and right, all so that we could take a shot at the quarter-finals with the help of our alliance members. Nemesis was very proud and grateful to have made it to the quarter-finals, and we know that we will improve and do better in the next competition!

With the sound of robots beeping and buzzers sounding, Hatboro Havoc was a great way to revive the enthusiasm throughout the entire team for a new year of FIRST robotics competition. The competition made for an incredibly eventful weekend filled with excitement and energy amongst the entire field of teams. Hatboro Havoc was an outstanding event for the entire team and served as an excellent opportunity for Nemesis to bring out an all new drive team. 

The day began with Nemesis’ robot, Iris, participating in the first match of the competition. Our brand new drive team stepped into the drivers station to take on the challenge. Our robot was firing on all cylinders, and our drivers, Aryan Gaur and Leo Daniels were flawless in aiming the cargo into the hub and attempting the climb. During this match, our alliance was able to win by 18 points! Iris’ first game was a great way for the team to start the day.

Our robot appeared next in the sixth qualification match. As the buzzer sounded, and the match began, Iris started to prolifically shoot cargo into the hub. As the match progressed, Iris entered the hangar area with 20 seconds remaining. On Iris's way to the high rung, the robot experienced an issue with an arm, and ended up sideways on the ground. With the climber separated from our robot on the ground, our team was in shock. Despite the rush of nervousness throughout the team, as the drive team worked to get our robot back to top shape, Iris was fully repaired before the beginning of the team's next match. Once the match finished, our alliance was able to escape with and win, with the thinnest of margins, the final score being 91-89. By qualification match 9, Iris was back on the field. For the first time since Iris’ original incident, the team was back up to face the climb again. Regardless of the obstacles Iris faced, our alliance was able to take the lead, and the win, with the score being, 73-60.

Things became difficult as the elimination matches began. Iris took part in four elimination matches, winning the first, and losing the second. This resulted in the teams first loss for the day. As the elimination matches continued, Iris started facing many challenges. In one elimination match, Iris finally managed to reach the traversal rung during the endgame. Simultaneously, the team's shooter began to experience difficulties. Iris had lost function in its pneumatics system, and started experiencing issues with the limelight and battery. Ultimately, the team wasn’t able to work its way back through the elimination matches and lost in the semi-finals.

Hatboro-Havoc was a wonderful experience for the team. The competition was a great way to get the team together and gather excitement for what's to come with Nemesis. Hatboro-Havoc was a delightful experience, and we look forward to being back in Horsham, PA in the near future.

At the Mount Olive district event, Nemesis 2590 won the prestigious Engineering Inspiration Award. This award was given to Nemesis as a result of our relentless outreach to the Community locally, statewide, and even globally. Our team is highly active, with many outreach programs created, supported, and run by us. One of our primary efforts locally is Discovery and Engineering day, which spreads STEM to young students in our community. We work with the students, in elementary school for Discovery day, and middle school for Engineering day, to complete challenges as both mentors and students assist them to reach the end goal. During the covid pandemic, we did not want to end this long-standing Nemesis tradition, so we made it virtual! We held an online Discovery day, offering students the opportunity to complete kits at home, with tutorials created by team members to assist them in their efforts. Students posted results to our Facebook page with many students sporting impressive results! Ultimately, we were asked to assist other STEM clubs at our school to hold online events, reaching over 70 students. 

Nemesis works every season to put an excellent robot on the field, but it would be nothing without our supportive community! In order to give back to our community, we host a sponsor night, where we invite sponsors, parents, and other members of our community, to hear about all of the great achievements we have attained. We recently held our 2022 sponsor night, which was very successful, and we look forward to maintaining this tradition in the future. Additionally, we collaborate with our local school district to hold an annual food drive, where we work with 4th-grade classes to raise supplies for local food banks. Nemesis offers the class that donates the most food, a demonstration of the robot, delivered by our students. This simultaneously raises food for those less fortunate, and spreads STEM to young students, increasing their interest in joining robotics teams in the future, both FLL and Nemesis itself.

Nemesis understands that the opportunities to spread STEM stretch beyond our local community. We worked with our state assemblyman, Daniel Benson, to pass a bill to distribute funding to 12 districts, with the goal of starting new robotics teams all across New Jersey. These teams will primarily be located in underserved communities that traditionally could not afford to have a robotics team. We started with a joint legislative resolution for the Robbinsville town council, urging our state assembly to take action to increase the number of robotics teams within New Jersey. Following this, we worked with Daniel Benson to move this bill to be in front of the State legislature for a vote. Members of our team gave written and oral testimony to the state assembly and senate. We additionally held preparation sessions for other teams to do the same. The bill passed unanimously in all votes it was a part of, and Governor Phil Murphy signed the bill into law on December 21, 2021. Our team continues to work with FIRST Mid-Atlantic, and the teams that helped us pass the bill, to attain the funding needed for this bill. 

Our team has done numerous outreach events for our community domestically, so when the opportunity arose for us to expand internationally, we jumped at the opportunity to expand STEM to new horizons. We worked with our sponsor ITIAH and the nonprofit ITIAH Angels for Learning to send STEM challenges to students in HAITI. We have fostered this relationship for years, sending kits to Haiti, Panama, and Kenya. We have recently put together 200 STEM kits to send to students in both the House of Hope Orphanage and the Ecole Mere Louise school in Haiti. In addition to STEM kits, we are sending food, clothing, sports equipment, and legos. We fostered our relationship with our local community by holding a lego drive, which raised over 15,000 legos to send to students in Panama. Overall, our team relentlessly works to make sure that we continue to expand our outreach to our community and beyond, making sure STEM reaches as far and wide as it can. 
    
 

Nemesis is always looking for new ways to help out the community and spread STEM. Our project, where we developed STEM challenges for engineers in training, is a prime example of our outreach here at Nemesis. Recently, we assembled 800 kits for our outreach program. 600 of those kits will go to our local elementary school, where they will help reinforce STEM education. The other 200 will be sent to Haiti through one of our outreach partners. Each kit contains parts that allow the student to complete an engineering project. The kits encourage creativity and problem solving skills.  Realizing the importance of these kits, our team worked to develop the project and bring it to fruition.  There were three types of kits that we assembled. The first was a Wobble Bot, a robot designed like a toy that, when activated, moves in unpredictable directions. The second project was a rubber band powered helicopter, which would launch into a short flight and then glide  to the ground. The third kit was a toy modeled after a wizard’s wand which used popsicle sticks, wires, a watch battery, and an LED to illuminate a “spell” in different colors and was designed to introduce the students to basic electrical circuits. Accompanying videos will be posted to our YouTube channel, demonstrating how to assemble the kits and discussing the engineering principles of each kit. These kits represent just a small part of Nemesis' widespread outreach programs to help both our local and international communities in spreading awareness about STEM.

Nemesis got its first victory of this season, and an impressive one at that. The competition, hosted by Seneca High School, was the second district event that our team has attended this year. The event was spread over 2 days, with the first day focused entirely on the qualification matches, while the second included both the qualification and elimination matches. Day 1 started with an opening ceremony, followed by 47 matches. We played 9 matches on Saturday, winning all but one. Nemesis ended the day in the second seed and ready for the next day of competing.

The following day started off with a narrow defeat, but Nemesis regained its footing, ending the qualifiers with the 3rd place. Our strategy team worked with fellow teams to pick potential alliance partners, using the valuable data our scouts collected throughout the competition. The Alliance Selection saw the first seed team 5895, Peddie Robotics, choose us as their first pick. The second team chosen was team 5407, Wolfpack Robotics, forging an unstoppable alliance. The first quarterfinal matches demonstrated the amazing synergy of our alliance, and we bested the 8th seeded alliance in the second game of a 3 game series. The semi-finals went similarly, with our alliance scoring triple digits both times and setting a competition-high score of 117 points. Meanwhile, alliance 2 and 3 duked it out in the most intense matches of the day. While alliance 2 won the first game, the second match was decided by tiebreakers. Since the third alliance had committed less penalties, they won the second game. The third semi final saw the teams match each other not only on score, but also the first tiebreaker. The second tiebreaker, based on who scored more hangar points, revealed that alliance 2 had taken the series.

The first finals match saw our alliance triumph, with a triple digit score, in spite of a double traversal climb from alliance 2. We gripped the edges of our seats as we watched the second match unfold. With a flurry of shots from both alliances, it all seemed like a blur of speeding metal. When the dust finally settled, Nemesis was on the traversal rung and the red alliance had won 89-73. Screams of joy, excitement, and pure happiness filled the air as the entire stadium stood up in applause. We commend our opponents in Alliance 2 for their fierce competitiveness, as well as all the other teams who attended the event at Seneca. We saw firsthand how hard they all worked and how well it is paying off. With our alliance as the winners of the tournament, the awards ceremony ensued. Our team won the industrial design award, commending our excellent “industrial design principles”. Seneca was a resounding victory for our team, and we are most excited to attend our next competition, the First Mid Atlantic Regional Championship, at Lehigh University.
 

At the 2022 Seneca District Competition, our very own Vinu Sankaran won the Dean's List Nomination Award. Vinu wowed the judges during his interview, where he talked about his long history with FIRST, how he was introduced to Nemesis and his great contributions to this team. Vinu started his journey in the FIRST community through FLL where he was part of team Shockwave. When he was in elementary school, he attended an event that Nemesis hosts for children in Robbinsville, Discovery Day. At Discovery Day Vinu’s eyes were opened to the STEM opportunities that were available in high school and he was mesmerized by the FRC Robot Demo which was part of the event. He was intrigued by his experience through the hands-on activities at Discovery Day and went on to attend Engineering Day, a similar event held by Nemesis that is targeted towards older children. When his freshman year rolled along he tried out for the Build Team here at Nemesis and successfully earned himself a spot on this team. Through his years as a Nemesis member, Vinu explored his interests and found that he was more aligned with our Community Outreach subteam where he began to contribute to. Currently, he is a Co-lead of the Community Outreach team and is one of three members of our Chairman’s team. Vinu demonstrated his creativity, research skills, strong presentation skills, and his devotion to this team while being a Chairman’s team member. In our virtual 2021 season, Nemesis won the Chairman’s Award which was a proud victory for the entire team. This would not have been possible without Vinu’s time that he spent working with the rest of his fantastic Chairman’s partners. Vinu himself said, “Winning this award is something I’m very proud of, however putting a hundred percent effort and care into all my contributions to this team is the basic standard that I hold myself to.” Vinu is a well-rounded student as he is also part of the Boy’s Tennis Team and Model UN at Robbinsville High School. There is one lesson that Vinu always carries with him: no matter what, he should let all his activities produce fun! Vinu Sankaran is clearly Dean’s List material because he is a gracious professional, hard worker, engaged team member and friend to all! Vinu brings laughter and joy to this team while being an efficient worker during every meeting and on March 27th at Seneca High School, he brought us great honor when he won his Dean’s List Nomination Award!

The Mount Olive competition was a great way to start off our 2022 season. This competition was hosted by the Mount Olive Highschool. The first day was entirely made up of qualification matches, with the second day consisting of both qualification matches, and the final knockout stage. Day one was shortened due to inclement weather, and as a result it ended at 11 am. After the opening ceremonies were completed, the qualification matches began. During the remainder of day 1,  teams worked through 13 matches of fierce competition. Nemesis participated in the second match of the day and with the help of our prolific shooting, and  the team's ability to climb to the second or “medium” bar, we were able to secure a 46-22 victory. After 2 games on the opening day, we finished with 1 win and 1 loss, being ranked 16th going into the second day. 

The next day of the competition, the team prepared for a day jam packed with games, our team being scheduled for 10 games this day, with a knockout stage following the completion of the qualification matches. In the first qualification match, our team started off with a bang, scoring 63 points, ending with our first successful high climb of the competition, allowing us to win by a score of 63-8. As the day carried on, our robot continued to win matches, rapidly climbing the leaderboard, with the help of our traversal climb reliably scoring our alliances 15 points in the endgame stage. While this was happening, our team scouted other matches, making sure to note teams that would be ideal teammates in the following stage. As the qualifiers continued, and our climb became more reliable, the team managed to go on a 6 game winning streak, sending our team to the number one seed for the knockout stage and clinched a spot for us in the quarter finals. Using our scouting data, we chose alliance partners. Our first alliance pick was team 3142, Aperture, and they accepted the invitation to join our alliance, becoming the second of three members. Our second selection was team 4652, Ironmen II, filling our alliance with strong partners. In the quarterfinals, Nemesis’ alliance took 2 commanding victories winning the 2 opening  games in the best of 3 series, the final scores being 83-53, and 93-63, scoring multiple 30+ point endgames. Nemesis advanced to the semifinals, preparing to face off against the blue alliance consisting of the teams 1674, 834, and 102.  On the back of our traversal climb, we won the series 2-0 after hard fought games and earned a trip to the finals.

In the finals, we faced off against the blue alliance, which was made up of teams 1403, 222, and 1811. In our opening match, our alliance unfortunately lost 40-26, though the match was being voided, due to a field issue. In the second match, conditions devolved. Due to their damaged communications, Team 3142 couldn't go on in the competition. Initially, the two remaining members of our alliance tried to win the first counted match of the finals, hoping that 3142 would have their robot fixed promptly. We narrowly lost this match by 9 points, going down in the series, 1-0. As the second match approached, team 3142 was still unable to fix their communications, and a replacement was implemented. Team 8771 stepped in, and put on a great performance. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. Our alliance fell 46-32 to the blue alliance. The performances from teams 222, 1403, and 1811 posed a great challenge for us, and we commend them on their skills and abilities. The awards ceremony ensued where our team won the Engineering Inspiration award to celebrate our outstanding sucess and appreciation for engineering.  Nemesis is excited for a great season, and our next event at Seneca. 

Kickoff weekend was two days filled with excitement, curiosity and the begining of new ideas for FRC teams across the globe! The new 2022 challenge, Rapid React, was streamed live from FRC headquarters in New Hampshire to teams on January 8th. Here in Robbinsville, team Nemesis 2590 stirred with anticipation for the game overview to be released as they viewed the live stream together. The entire team was at the edge of their seats as the livestream progressed and the time for the big announcement came closer! The moment the black chest was opened and the two new pieces of cargo were unleashed to the awaiting FRC teams, Nemesis shook the room with cheers and claps! The 2022 build season has officially commenced!

This year's challenge consists of the traditional 3 game periods: the Autonomous period, the teleoperated period, as well as the endgame, when robots can climb the hangar. All of which are designed for the robot to accomplish specific aspects of the challenge. Robots have the opportunity to score points by: taxiing from their tarmac, retrieving and scoring their assigned cargo into the hub, continuing to retrieve and score their assigned cargo into the hub, as well as engaging with their hangar. One large difference from this year’s field in comparison to the last is the hangar itself as it’s no longer located in the center of the field, but instead there are two hangars in the corners of the field (one per alliance).This year’s projectiles, cargo, is also different from previous years as it resembles a lighter, ‘dodge-ball sized’ tennis ball which are color coordinated for each alliance. 

After the livestream, the team split into small groups to talk about their brewing thoughts for the coming season. On Saturday, the rooms stirred with brainstorming, questions and a whole lot of new strategies. The Rapid React challenge, especially with the theme of transportation, is intriguing to Nemesis because of all the possible ways to incorporate the concept into their robot. The question of “What” was being asked as the team clarified their goals on the field, the feasibility of achieving their goals and which challenges were their priorities. Finally, the entire team came together to compile a list based on their small-group analyses.  

On Sunday, after deciding the tasks that the team wished to accomplish, the discussions of “How” came into session. The build team broke into smaller subteams to put out their initial thoughts while beginning strategizing the routes they wanted to take to create their most successful robot. The commencement of prototyping is soon to follow; this is where team 2590 utilizes the method of trial and error to creatively and effectively find ways to complete their missions. Work for the marketing team also began as their large list of tasks was divided amongst members and subteams for the approaching competitions. The main topic in the marketing room was the to-do list for the upcoming Sponsor Night. It’s all because of the sponsors that the team is able to build a world class robot and compete in the First competitions!

Kickoff weekend, at home in Robbinsville, was spent doing hard work, but there was no doubt that it was tons of fun! From the time the challenge was released to the creation of the first prototypes the team shared so many laughs and smiles. There is nothing but excitement from FRC 2590 for this new build season and a fresh start!