The Flying Toasters' News

What does the Flying Toasters and The US Postal Service have in common? Snow can’t keep them from delivering!

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stayed the SLCS unified high school robotics, TEAM 3641, the Flying Toasters from the swift completion of their task to perform at FIRST in Michigan Macomb Community College District event this past weekend.  Overcoming many insurmountable obstacles, from in climate weather causing two snow days, hindering the logistics of transporting our equipment (two truckloads), the real effect was in the loss of meeting time to put the final touches on our robot, programming, testing, practice, and most especially being able to getting the team prepared and on the same page.  Instead, due to the weather, things were tossed into boxes, communication was by internet, and the team had to pull it all together there at the event in the minutes before competition began.

We all know that trying to get things done last minute is not the position you want to be in, especially if your drive to be successful is as strong as the Flying Toasters.  Stress ensues, temper flair, people panic, stuff isn’t put together right, etc., and a recipe for disaster is all but made. Through all these unpleasantries, the Flying Toasters worked the problem and not let the problem work them. They put WE OVER ME. They clung to the Habits of Mind that SLCS holds so dear. They reconciled their offenses. They stayed the course. They persevered. They turned the chaotic mess where most teams would surrender into the best performance Team 3641 has ever done at their first Michigan district event in the 10-season history, earning them a near bid to qualify for State Championships.

Each year the Toasters have added equipment, but more especially they have added knowledge and capabilities.  Taking of these resources, they packaged an extremely complex set of systems including a climber and autonomous targeting turret shooter in an incredibly small simplistic package.  Using CAD (Onshape), CNC router and mill, and manual machines like lathes and vertical milling machines, they were able to build this robot in just over 6 weeks. Software, aka, programming, would be king here to the successful operation of all the systems in concert. From the onset, it was clear that the ability of our robot to shoot many accurate balls into the target and then go an find more and shoot them accurately, all by itself during the autonomous period would be very important. As the drive team developed their skills during teleoperation period and the “bugs” were fixed on the robot, the overall performance only got better.  For much of the event, the Toasters were in the top of the teams there.

Robot Reveal Video:

Picked by the number one seed, Team 3641 and it’s alliance, breezed through quarterfinals and semis.  In finals, broken robots on both sides started to indicate that the fate of the results were up in the air.  With both alliances in the finals have one win under their belt, a nail-biting finish ensued, and our alliance fell with the loss of just one climb. So close.  

But the successes did not end just there. At the awards assembly, the judges honored Team 3641, The Flying Toasters, with the coveted Engineering Inspiration Award celebrating the outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team’s school and community.  Automatically, the Toasters are expected to compete at State Championships in this category regardless if their robot qualifies to compete.

The final tally for the Toasters, their performance and awards, earned 63 points (out of 75 possible), the most the team has ever received at a first district event. Typically the threshold to qualify for State Championships is around 70 points total of all their events; the Toasters have two more district events to attend.

NEXT STEP:  FIRST in Michigan Belleville District Event, March 12 – 14, 2020

BELLEVILLE

https://www.thebluealliance.com/team/3641

A BIG NOTE:  Team 3641 would like to thank the wonderful dedication of all of the SLCS staff who made this possible.  A special thanks and great appreciation goes out to Ben Kirby, Karen Fisher, Larry Carr, George Wolfe and the wonderful people clearing GOC, who in the hour of our need, made it all happen.  

Dear Team 3641,

To support Ford’s efforts in funding STEAM investment and scholarships, we require the support of our Ford sponsored FRC teams in providing student data for all students on our sponsored FRC teams. This data is securely and privately stored within Ford’s internal system. It is used solely by Ford to allocate future funding to STEAM programs as well as to support scholarship programs.

We are pleased to announce that this data also supports a scholarship opportunity for graduating high school seniors who are members of Ford supported FIRST teams. All graduating high school seniors on our FRC teams are eligible to apply for a $ 2,500 renewable scholarship. Although seniors are invited to apply for a Ford Blue Oval STEAM scholarship, there is no guarantee that all applicants will receive scholarships.

Please provide contact data for all high school students (Freshman, Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors) who are members of the team by (Team 3641 due date is February 25th). Data received after this point will not be considered. The Seniors on your team will automatically be considered for this scholarship opportunity which is by invitation only and is strictly limited to Seniors from a Ford sponsored FRC team. Please do not share this announcement beyond the select student group.

The student information in the attached Excel spreadsheet is required by our scholarship processing office and for internal Ford funding support. Please note: student contact information will be used solely for STEAM scholarship and STEAM investment purposes.  Please do not obtain or provide student data from school records (must be obtained from parents/students).

Prior to submitting the requested information, please ensure that you have obtained consent from student applicants or from the parent/legal guardian for students who are minors. We assume that you will make a good faith attempt to reach out to the students/parents on your team and submit the requested data.  If a student/parent does not respond, please enter only their name and select the “did not respond” option provided.

As mentioned, this letter is an invitation to apply for the Ford Blue Oval STEAM scholarship program, but there is no guarantee that all applicants will receive a scholarship. SME Education Foundation will contact students to initiate the application process. Students selected for scholarship will be notified directly. Ford reserves the right to change or modify the terms of the scholarship.

Thank you, 

The Ford FIRST® Board

IF you go to BaseCamp in HQ or the members only page in our website, you will find a link to a Google Form to collect the data needed by FORD. All responses must be made before the end of day on Saturday, February 24th.  No responses will be take after that.  Also, please make sure to provide the information in the format requested or your response may be invalid and not processed. 

NOTE: Seven of our last year’s seniors each received a $2500 scholarship for up to four years (Tentatively a $10,000 total).

Due to the ice day, we are moving tonight’s meeting to Friday.  Our new schedule for the rest of this week is:

Wednesday. – No Meeting
Thursday – Meeting from 6 to 9pm
Friday – Meeting from 6 to 9pm
Saturday – Meeting from 10 to 5pm

As you know, school is closed due to temperatures, so there are absolutely NO MEETINGS Wednesday (tonight) and Thursday.

First, Saturday’s Outreach:  Here is the link to the sign up for Saturday’s outreach at the Rotary Club.  We need to have 12 people attending each session from our team. 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1glCCliIqeWOZdIpJg6GEMEEJbyO2P8PWV8OwnxuJc_4/edit?usp=sharing

Second, in order to prepare for Saturday’s Outreach, we are going to meet on Friday, from 6-9pm.  I know the plan was not to meet on Fridays, but with all the weather days and cancelled meetings, we desperately need to get caught up.  

So, here is the current meeting plan:

Friday, Feb 1st.  6-9pm
Saturday, Feb 2nd.  10-5pm
Monday, Feb 4th. 6-9pm
Tuesday, Feb 5th. 6-9pm
Wednesday, Feb 6th. 6-9pm
Thursday, Feb 7th, 6-9pm
Saturday, Feb 9th, 10-5pm

There is a possible concern for weather next week.  Sun-Mon-Tues is rain with wintery mix. With back roads unable to be cleared to the dirt because of the cold weather this week, next week’s rain will mix with the snow making icy conditions.  We may loose a day next week; so this is why the schedule is so aggressive. 

At Monday’s meeting, we will be getting back into the norm, addressing the Safety Stickers, Safety training & exercises, Design updates, Tactical plan, Items due to FIRST, etc.  Use the campfire in this section to discuss things we need to do or address so that the team can get organized. 

Stay Warm. Read Updates. Check out http://chiefdelphi.com

Make sure you get rest; go to bed and not stay up playing computer games as we will need to make up the lost time in the next two weeks.  YOU WILL NEED YOUR ENERGY.  We will be running at the Burkowski pace….(evil laugh)

Greetings,

I hope you enjoyed the past two days off from school. Due to those snow days being exam days, the exams have been pushed back to Monday and Tuesday.  We are also expecting a snow storm on Monday, depending on which weatherman you ask.  Therefore, here are the new meeting plans:

Saturday, Jan 26th, from 10am to 5pm.  Bring your paint/work/(can get dirty in) clothes and a change of clothes to go home in.  We have lots of things to get done. 

Monday, Jan 28th – No Meeting  (Exams) – Meeting is moved to Wednesday.
Tuesday, Jan 29th – No Team Meeting – Meeting moved to Thursday.

Wednesday, Jan 30th from 6 to 9pm – Mandatory Meeting.  At this meeting we are going to go over where we are at, where we are going, and how we are going to get there.  This is a very important meeting and we ask everyone to be there. 

Thursday, Feb 1st from 6 to 9pm – Curriculum Night.  The shop will be open for us to work on projects/items as well as demonstrate the robotics team to the incoming freshman from 7-8:30pm.  

Friday, Feb 2nd – No Meeting

Saturday, Feb 2nd, from 10am to 5pm.  Bring your work/(can get dirty in) clothes and a change of clothes to go home in.  We have lots of things to get done.

-Mr. Weber

Saturday:  Game Reveal

TEAM 3641: All team members are to report to Room 1670 at the 
Bob and Betty Beyster Building (Computer Science)  for 9:30am.  Attendance will be take at 9:35am & again at 5:55pm (must be there for both attendance checks to count for attending that day event– if students leave early, parent must sign them out with Mr. Weber).

Remember to wear your team shirt (blue polo preferred), as we will be taking individual photos for team member bios.

Lunch is approximately at 12 noon and will be provided by the team (Thank you to Mr. & Mrs. Novilla for arraigning this). 

The Team will meet from 9:30am to 6pm. Pick-up no later than 6:10pm! 

Campus tours Tours will leave at 8:15am from the Pierpont Commons Lobby near Coach’s Check as well as a UM Fair starts at 8:30am.

Please note: There will be electrical & wireless access in room 1670 Lecture Hall. 

There are also local food area available, so have students bring $20 in case they wish to get snacks, drinks, etc. outside of our lunch. 

Sunday: Strategy, QFD & Brainstorming at U of M North Campus

10am to 6pm. Pick-up no later than 6:10pm! Doors open at 9:45am for pre-team meeting discussions. Attendance taken at 10:05am & again at 5:55pm (must be there for both attendance checks to count for attending that day event- if students leave early, parent must sign them out with Mr. Weber).

Bring a snack to pass! We will be having a snack break at 2:30pm. There are also local food area available, so have students bring $20 in case they wish to get snacks, drinks, etc. outside of our lunch. 

Good afternoon teams,
I hope you are looking forward to the FRC Destination: Deep Space Kickoff this Saturday! I have a few final reminders before the day of the event. A parking map is available on our website at https://famnm.club/events/kickoff.html. I have attached a general schedule to this email, but if you want to find your team’s specific schedule and auditorium, enter your team number on our website. If you have not registered on our form, you will not have been assigned an auditorium to view the broadcast in (the form is linked below).  

TEAM 3641: All team members are to report to Room 1670 at the 
Bob and Betty Beyster Building (Computer Science)  for 9:30am.  Attendance will be take at 9:35am.  Lunch is approximately at 12 noon and will be provided by the team (Thank you to Mr. & Mrs. Novilla for arraigning this).  The Team will meet from 9:30am to 6pm. Pick-up no later than 6:10pm!  Campus tours Tours will leave at 8:15am from the Pierpont Commons Lobby near Coach’s Check as well as a UM Fair starts at 8:30am. Please note: There will be electrical & wireless access in room 1670 Lecture Hall.  There is also local food area available, so have students bring $20 in case they wish to get snacks, drinks, etc. outside of our lunch. 

More from U of M FAMNM Hosts:
Be sure to have parents fill out the children on campus form for their children (this applies to students that are younger than 18 and who will not have their parent/legal guardian present). They can do so here or at the link below. These forms serve mostly as a formality but are required by the University, and there have been a few questions regarding them. Many people have not been receiving the confirmations from the University. I have been receiving confirmation of the forms, so if you don’t get a confirmation email, do not worry the form went through. For the medical authorization to treat form, please bring your forms with you to check-in; we will collect them there. If you would like for these forms to be returned to at the end of the program, email me ahead of time so I know to set yours aside for easy access.

As a reminder, on the day of the event, we will have a large room reserved for viewing the field. Due to the VR nature of the field, this room will serve as an open space to give people room to walk around and lower risk of bumping into one another. We will have 16 Google Cardboard headsets available to check-out. When you check-in in the morning, you will be asked to select a fifteen-minute timeslot that your team would like to view the field. This will be first-come-first-serve. Teams are welcome to bring their own headsets to the field, and at any time that there is an available headset (such as when a team does not need or want all 16), students may use one. The Google Cardboard headsets we purchased support screen sizes of up to six inches. It is up to teams to provide their own phones and have the application and field installed.

We look forward to seeing you at this year’s FRC Destination: Deep Space Kickoff! 

Link: http://umforms.tfaforms.net/2?CampId=7011R000000X5HtQAKKickoff

Being on a wait-list for so long, we had given up on any chances of being selected to attend this regional, especially as more regions are moving to districts like we have here in Michigan. However, with an early gift to start off the 2019 season, we are in!

Buckeye Regional MAR 27 – MAR 30 2019 
Cleveland State University – Wolstein Center
2000 Prospect Street
Cleveland, OH 44115 USA

Link to Event

Map to Regional

The Blue Alliance – Buckeye Regional & Teams Going

FIRST Inspires Buckeye Event Info

Parents are required to fill out the children on campus form for their children to be able to attend any of the Kick-off days. They can do so here or at the link below. These forms serve mostly are required by the University.  

LINK:  https://umforms.tfaforms.net/2?CampId=7011R000000X5HtQAK