Nemesis Kicks Off FIRST Season

Tens of thousands of students around the world waited with baited breath to hear the new FIRST Robotics challenge, Aerial Assist. Teams of robots will pass, catch and shoot 2 foot large balls across an arena with their teammates into six foot high goals. Each team has six weeks to design and build their masterpiece.

Braving the snow and the ice, team members appeared as early as 7:15am to hear this year’s game announcement. Nemesis, the RHS FIRST Robotics Team 2590 and other area FIRST robotics teams took advantage of workshops on topics such as pneumatics, gearboxes, and the judging criteria for the Chairman’s Award, the competition’s most prestigious honor, while they waited for the official broadcast to begin.

Students from Robbinsville, Hamilton, Allentown, Ewing, Hightstown, Bridgewater and other communities gathered at Montgomery High School on January 4 for the kickoff of the 2014 FIRST Robotics Competition season and watched the NASA-TV webcast revealing this year’s challenge. All over the world, 2700 teams were assembled at similar gatherings to watch the announcement broadcast live from Southern New Hampshire University.

Every year, FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) reveals a new challenge that gives students the opportunity to test their robotics and engineering know-how in arena-style competitions at district, regional — and if they’re successful — national and international events.

The buzz in the air was electric as students sat on the edge of their seats. The excitement was palatable as teams awaited FIRST Founder, Dean Kamen’s unveiling of Aerial Assist. A hush fell over the room as students & mentors voraciously watched the game video.

Aerial Assist is played in randomly selected 3 vs. 3 alliances in rounds that are two minutes and 30 seconds long. During the first 10 seconds of the match, called the Autonomous Period, the robot follows pre-programmed instructions to shoot a large 24 inch ball in the ‘hot’ goal. Then the student drivers step in for the Teleoperated Period. Here, cooperation is of utmost importance. Teams pass the ball from robot to robot across the court, earning bonus points for tossing and catching as well as successful cooperation. The final robot shoots the ball into various goals to score cumulative points for the alliance. Although the task can be completed by a single robot, high bonus points are awarded to the amount of passes each team completes before scoring.

Nemesis Chief Technical Officer, Julia Borowski enthused, “We are prototyping in Autodesk Inventor, our Computer Aided Design (CAD) software, to design, test and simulate our various components before we machine and assemble our competition robot. I am looking forward to my final competition season and preparing our underclassmen for years to come.“
RHS sophomore, Samantha Young pointed out, “Teamwork is essential in this year’s challenge. I am very excited to see how well all the teams cooperate.”

“Definitely a challenge, but it will be fun to solve,” laughed Arnav Vast, RHS Junior.

And then they were off! Nemesis members raced home to read the rule book and get ready to share their ideas and begin prototyping that evening.

Nemesis members returned to the Robbinsville High School Technology Lab with high hopes for the design and build season. The next few weeks will be filled with lots of hard work, but when the robot is finally complete, all of those long hours will be worthwhile.

”FIRST isn’t about competing, it’s about cooperating and recognizing that if you have the right tools, you’ll be able to make this world a better place for yourself and for the country,” said Dean Kamen, the president of DEKA Research and Development and FIRST founder.

Game on!

Nemesis would like to thank their sponsors: Robbinsville High School, New York Society of Cosmetic Chemists, CCL Label, Lockheed Martin, Siemens, Nordson, Citibank, Elite Dental Care, Robbinsville Education Association, Carfaro Fencing, DesignTree, Gilbane, McGraw Hill Financial, R.A.S. Process Equipment, Gaum, and SRI International. For additional information please visit www.frc2590.org or contact Team Advisor Joy Wolfe at wolfe@robbinsville.k12.us.