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2023 Week 4: Team Journal

Build

This week, the Build team was hard at work preparing for the soon-approaching competition season ahead! The past three weeks have been filled with intense brainstorming, prototyping, and testing. After careful deliberation and consideration of our various prototypes, we have settled on a finalized robot design to continue developing for the rest of the build season.

The electrical subteam has been hard at work wiring up various subsystems on different prototypes for the robot. Many forms of intake, placing, and even vision systems were wired up, allowing for efficiency in testing. Problems also occurred with the Kitbot’s speed motor connectors, which impaired the ability of the drivetrain to function properly. This issue was dealt with, allowing the Kitbot to continue functioning optimally. The fabrication subteam continued to teach new members about the different machines present in the techlab. Practice was done with the router and bandsaw, allowing new team members to gain valuable hands-on experience. Additionally, the mill was used to mill bars that would become useful for many parts of the final robot design.

On the design subteam, work was done to finalize the CAD of the robot. Members continued to use Onshape to CAD the drivetrain, elevator, and other key aspects of the final design. The software subteam worked hard to fix some common bugs in the drivetrain’s programming. This included using CANCoders to create a workaround for known Falcon encoder issues. Additionally, members worked on using field vision to autoalign the Mk4 drivetrain with field elements, such as the april tags present on the grid. New code was also written to verify the odometry measurements with the new drivetrain. Overall, the build team had a successful week of designing, programming, fabricating, and assembling. With the build season coming to a close, we hope to finish out strong and hit the ground running during competition season!

 

Business

4 weeks into the build season, the Business team continued working on various tasks in preparation for the rest of the season. As a team, planning continued for our upcoming Sponsor Night, and updates to our team showcases occurred as well. Our various subteams were also hard at work. Specifically, our finance subteam continued to apply for grants and potential sponsorship opportunities, which will allow us access to increased resources for our team. Additionally, the 5-year business plan was completed, and work continued on the overarching business plan. The logistics subteam was hard at work planning for upcoming competitions, including the Hatboro-Horsham District Event, Mid-Atlantic Regional Championships, and even our own Robbinsville District Event. By starting early with preparations, we hope to make our District Event one of the best yet. 

On the Community Outreach subteam, members worked with Trenton Urban Promise to organize a STEM-kit building event, with the goal of spreading interest in STEM and engineering throughout our community. Additionally, the Community Outreach subteam planned and executed a second event with the same organization. The Media subteam worked on organizing and capturing action shots of our team. Updates were also made to our Pit Presentation, which will be utilized at future competitions and our upcoming Sponsor Night. Brainstorming also took place for our Impact video, and production will begin soon. Overall, it was a very productive week for the business team, and we are looking forward to a successful season ahead!

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Nemesis Delivers on its Promise to the community

The most recent Nemesis outreach event was a great opportunity for our team to give back to the community and inspire a new generation of innovators. The team visited the Urban Promise organization located in Trenton, NJ on January 31st and February 6th to guide and assemble STEM kits with elementary school children.

The three activities in the kits were interactive and immersive opportunities for the children to understand our team and how robotics work. 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. The kits were designed to encourage creativity and problem solving skills.

We also posted accompanying videos to our YouTube channel, demonstrating how to assemble the kits and discussing the engineering principles of each challenge. This allows the students to continue having engineering fun in their own homes!

The Nemesis members and children all had a great time at the event. According to the site director of the event, “The students were amazing and our children had a wonderful time creating the robots!” This opportunity was one of the many outreach programs that Nemesis offers to spread awareness about STEM and promote the FIRST message in our community.
 

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2023 Week 3: Team Journal

Build

3 weeks into build season, our team has experienced its fair share of ups and downs while working towards building a competitive robot in this year’s Charged Up challenge. We’ve made significant progress in our efforts to create a swerve-type drivetrain, as our Electrical Team finished wiring up the CanBUS system; we now hope to test swerve more intensely in weeks to come. Our Build Team focused on testing the “over the bumper” intake, but ran into issues regarding spacing. We are hard at work to resolve the issue, as was our Design Team, which improved geometries in their CAD models to ensure such issues do not reoccur. Design also tested various other geometries/prototypes, giving our build team more data to work with in the future. 

Fabrication stressed the importance of learning by teaching many of our underclassmen how to operate the various machines in the build lab, including the lathe, router, and mill. Under the careful watch of our senior members, our younger members became proficient and interested in our machines, now able to aid the team further. Software made leaps and bounds with swerve drive, coding an operational product that can be tested in the weeks to go. On top of this, software investigated how April Tags could be of use to us during matches, as well as finalizing Scouting Application v1. Through feedback from the rest of our teammates, Scout App received overwhelming positive reviews, and we are excited to use the new and improved version during competitions. 

 

Business

This week, the Business team diligently prepared for a variety of upcoming events. Our annual Sponsor Night is right around the corner, and the team is hard at work getting ready. First, our newer members continued to work on creating updated team showcases, to represent all of  Nemesis’ efforts last year. These showcases are a window into our team for all members of the community. The logistics team worked on invitations for Sponsor Night and planning for the event. Additionally, we created some exciting new community outreach events. This weekend, we will hold an FLL Meet and Greet, where we will teach local parents about FIRST, and why they should consider starting an FLL team of their own. We also connected all interested parents to work together. This joining together will enable our community to create multiple new FLL teams. This is a new and exciting opportunity for us to continue to spread the FIRST mission throughout Robbinsville. 

This week, our Community Outreach subteam will work with the Trenton Urban Promise organization for an upcoming STEM event. Our team hopes to spread the FIRST message to an underserved community by building STEM kits with kids from the Trenton area. Our logistics team also worked on planning for our competitions, including the week 3 Robbinsville district event. They continued the search for transportation, meals, and hotels for our travel competitions later this season. Overall, this was another highly productive week for the Nemesis Business team and we are looking forward to another exciting season of building and learning.

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FLL Meet and Greet: Building Connections, Brick by Brick

Nemesis 2590 recently held a meet and greet event for parents interested in creating First Lego League(FLL) teams within the Robbinsville community. The event started off with the prospective FLL parents arriving at the tech lab, and the kids heading to the hallway, where they could learn more about FLL. First, the kids were shown the FLL team IDK’s Lego robot and how it maneuvered on the field. Members of IDK explained the various sensors on the robot, the attachments, and how the robot was coded. Students were then given a chance to ask questions about their robot and FLL as a whole, which members of Nemesis 2590 and IDK answered. Throughout this process, the students developed a passion for FLL, and were excited to get started on a team.

Meanwhile, the parents were shown a presentation which detailed how FLL works, and the commitment it takes for parents to be part of an FLL team. Interest was higher than ever for FLL after the presentation. After the presentation, parents had the opportunity to network and form teams. Coaches were decided for each team, and they took the final steps in settinmg up teams. 

Overall, the FLL meet and greet was a successful event with new teams forming and kids expressing interest in First. The event was a great way for children to have fun while learning, and for parents to learn more about the FLL program, and how to get involved. Nemesis plans on helping these teams through their journey, and hopes they have lots of success, fun, and gain knowledge of STEM. Nemesis plans to continue hosting these types of events and additional workshops to promote STEM education, and inspire young people to pursue careers in these fields. 

Archive

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Bienvenue au Québec


The team was up with the sun on Wednesday, March 14 and arrived at the high school by 7 AM in preparation to embark on our adventure. Excitement was in the air as we loaded our bags into the LEGOLAND bus and waved “good-bye” to Robbinsville and “hello” to Montréal and the Festivale de Robotique FRC a Montreal Regional.

But we had a lot of time to kill on the eight hour bus ride. In the middle of The Dark Knight, people starting dozing and Karla took this opportunity to snap… entertaining photos of the sleeping team members. Around the three hour mark, we stopped for lunch at Roy Rogers, then continued straight until the border. All team members were quickly “okayed” to cross into Canada (passport and green card holders alike) and it became the first time out of the country for Julia and the Principato family. From there, it was a quick 40 minute drive to the hotel.

Nemesis was ecstatic to arrive at the Le Centre Sheraton around four in the afternoon. After checking out our rooms and basking in the glory of three days off school, some team members met up for a series of intense card games, while our dedicated track team members hit the gym’s treadmills. A few build team members also went to drop Prince off at the Stade Uniprix, the arena where the regional would be held. A few hours later, we headed off to the pool for some games of categories and relaxing in the whirlpool. The day was ended with an interesting pizza meal, and the team was ready for the real fun to start the next day.

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Celebrating A Quarter Century


Mr. Meredith’s evening full of celebration began with Mrs. Wolfe and the marketing team scouring the classrooms trying to find a lighter for the candles on his cake—from the ovens in the Life Skills room to the Bunsen Burners in the Science labs, while Baljot and Erica desperately tried to hide the secret birthday cake behind a cardboard box. Realizing that fire is a school safety hazard (who knew?), we proceeded to sticking two unlit candles on the cake and warning the Build Team of our entrance.

Finally, the doors were opened and the singing began—quite off-key, I must add, but I believe it’s the thought that counts. Also, since one cake was not going to cut it—no pun intended—for about fifty members, Mrs. Wolfe craftily borrowed the barely eaten RHS Cotillion cake from the teacher’s lounge. Continuing the night, some members agreed to give Mr. Meredith a present, or rather twenty-five of their present. From Eric, he received an engraved twenty-six sided shape (one more side for good luck). From Julia, he received a CD of twenty-five Taylor Swift songs, because he just loves songs to which “he can daydream about boys.” And of course, twenty-five pictures of ponies and horses from our—hush-hush—resident centaur, Jenna. Finally,  Baljot and Karla created a large birthday card signed by each and every single one of our members. A half-eaten cake, a dozen pop country songs, and a rhombicuboctahedron later, dear Mr. Meredith’s birthday bash ends with a bang with a hilarious—including definitely no Googled pictures of Asian babies—montage video created by Baljot.

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Charity walk "enables" Nemesis to give back


In an effort to reach out to the community and participate in more charity events as a team, Nemesis has partnered with Enable Inc., a non-profit agency devoted to supporting individuals with disabilities to live full and independent lives within the community. We have formed a team to participate in the Walk n' Roll with Enable event on Saturday, February 25th at Rider University. We plan to fundraise and/or donate pledges as a team to raise money, and then walk at the event on the 25th. The walkers will represent Team Nemesis while supporting a great cause to help individuals within the community.

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SRI International Supports Team Nemesis with Generous Donation


We are proud to welcome a new sponsor, SRI International, who generously donated to Team Nemesis. Mr. Dimatulac, father of team member Karla, sent a request to SRI for a donation. They enjoyed reading about the dedication and success of the team, and support our mission. Alice Resnick, Vice President of Corporate & Marketing Communications, wrote “Best of luck to the team, and we wish you much continued success with your robotics program.”

SRI’s mission is to commit to the discovery and application of science and technology for knowledge, commerce, prosperity, and peace. Two of the consulting company’s main research focus areas are education and robotics. As a nonprofit research institute, SRI is very supportive of robotics programs which help to educate students in science and technology. The company believes robotics is a wonderful way to introduce and stimulate youth with an interest in engineering.

The contribution pays for the cost of parts and materials for the robot which will compete in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and Mid-Atlantic Region competitions in 2012. Team Nemesis appreciates SRI’s commitment to educate and encourage interest in STEM and is very grateful for their generous donation.

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ROBBINSVILLE: Robotics Team Ready to Rumble


THE MESSENGER-PRESS

"Prince," named after the team’s CEO Eric Principato, will be competing in district and regional FIRST Robotics competitions culminating in what the team hopes will be a strong showing in the 2012 national championship in St. Louis. The FIRST Robotics challenge for this year is called “The Rebound Rumble,” a competition that requires the students’ robot to earn points by shooting basketballs into hoops of varying heights inside an arena. The students need to work with their team and in alliances and “coopertition” with other teams for maximum points.

The robot, which has a shooter, a rotating turret and a conveyor, uses a camera to locate the basketball hoop’s backboard, calculate the distance of the shot, set the appropriate speed and then fire the ball into the hoop at a 50-degree angle.

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a national organization that runs mentor-based programs designed to teach students about science and technology, while giving them experiences that build their interpersonal skills and self-confidence.

The Robbinsville team, known as Nemesis (after the goddess of revenge and retribution) Team 2590, includes 66 students, RHS technology teachers Joy Wolfe and Scott Meredith, and a dedicated group of adult mentors. The group has been at work since the beginning of the school year making the plans needed to meet their robot deadline, but the actual “build season” is compressed into six short weeks. During the build season, students are often working in the RHS technology lab many nights until 11 p.m., as well as Saturdays.

The robot is only one small part of the club’s responsibilities. The entire endeavor is structured like an engineering business would be, including the creation of a business plan. The team is made up of various sub-teams, including Software, Marketing, Finance, Web and Build. Each of these teams is responsible for their part of the model business required for participation in the FIRST competitions.

Last Saturday, the students were working in the lab to prepare for the competition season. Members of the Build Team were busy putting together the robot structure, while members of the Software Team were working on how to control the robot, using a software program called LabVIEW.

In the midst of his work on the robot, Team 2590 CEO Eric Principato, a senior heading to Princeton University in the fall, was explaining the process to state Senator Linda Greenstein and Assemblyman Daniel Benson, both D-Mercer, who were visiting. Members of the Marketing and Finance teams, Jess Friedberg, Chris Karousatos, Ralph Petagna and Michelle Principato, also led a tour and were obviously well-versed in every aspect of the operation.

The Marketing Team works all year contacting sponsors, designing brochures and building community outreach programs. The Finance team is responsible for all donations and expenses. Michelle, a member of the Marketing Team, explained the philosophy of the team members not directly involved in the actual hands-on building of the robot.

”We pride ourselves on being well rounded,” Michelle said. “Even though we don’t build the robot, it is important to know how it works to market it,” she said.

During the competitions, while the Drive Team puts the robot through the required tasks, members of these teams will be in “The Pit” where they will be required to answer questions from the judges about their process. They also craft presentations for the awards that the FIRST competitions offer.

The Web Team runs an award-winning website that is constantly updated with the team’s progress and contains specific information about its many endeavors. Ric Principato, the website mentor among other roles, is the father of four robotics team members, triplets Eric, Michelle, and Alena, and their younger sister Christa.

”I have had the pleasure of seeing this for four years,” Mr. Principato said. “I can’t even measure the value it has had for my four kids.”

Another facet of the team’s work is community service. They recently organized a food drive at Sharon Elementary School and have participated in various fundraising walks for organizations, including Enable. The team also hosts a Discovery Day every year for 2nd to 5th grade students, using robots to encourage an interest in science and technology at an early age.

”Our small club could have such a big impact on the local community,” said Jess Friedberg about the many community endeavors. “We want high school students to reach back,” Mrs. Wolfe.

The robotics team, started in 2007 by Mrs. Wolfe with a NASA rookie grant, consists of students in grades 9 through 12, many of whom learn about it in the school’s technology and Project Lead The Way pre-engineering classes.

There are more freshmen on Nemesis Team 2590 this year than at any time before. The seniors mentor the freshman so that the underclassmen can step in to leadership roles after the upperclassmen graduate.

Some recruitment to the team “family” comes from blood relatives. In addition to the Principato clan, there is a set of twins and many members who are siblings of Nemesis Team 2590 alumni.

The team brings together students of diverse skills whose future plans are also diverse. They have applied and been accepted to many prestigious universities and plan to major in fields ranging from engineering to finance.

The students, who recognize that schoolwork comes first, are also involved in other extracurricular activities, including sports, at Robbinsville High School. They all seem to excel in time management. Zach Brown (Software/Build Teams), CEO Eric Principato, and one of the two CTO’s (chief technological officers) Matt Schwartz will also compete in the Panasonic Challenge, where they will build a robot on a smaller scale with low-cost materials, vying for up to $5,000 in scholarships. Mentor Peter Wolfe, a software engineer by trade, who, alongside his wife, the enthusiastic Mrs. Wolfe, spends many hours after work and on weekends working with the team, summed it up. “It’s not about the robot, the robot is a Trojan horse; just a trick to get kids interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics),” he said. “The kids love this; it’s a lot of fun and they learn a lot.”

To find out more about the Robbinsville High School Robotics Team, visit its website: frc2590.org.

The Robbinsville High School robotics team includes: Ben Arenstein, Sid Ayyagari, Christopher Banziger, Vivek Barbhaiya, Brandon Bellero, Julia Borowski, Zach Brown, Shannon Casserly, Nick Cenni, Venkatesh Chinnakonda, Regan Clarke, Kate Coggins, John Coriasco, Karla Dimatulac, Al Drake, Julian Esteban, Erica Falk, Josh Falk, Michael Filipek, Justin Francis, Jessica Friedberg, Kyle Gavalchin, Dan Gavrushenko, Kendrick Grace, Mehaa Gupta, Dylan Hong, Maddison Hughes, Uddhav Joglekar, Ryan Jurek, Alec Karousatos, Chris Karousatos, Stephanie Kovacs, Meghna Kuppuraju, Scott LaRochelle, Bhargav Lingala, Urmila Lingala, Christian Marsala, Christopher May, Austin Mayweather, Taylor Mayweather, Zach Mclaughlin, Anisha Mohan, Jenna Mollica, Karthik Paka, Snigdha Paka, Antonio Papa, Avani Pavuluri, Ralph Petagna, Alena Principato, Christa Principato, Eric Principato, Michelle Principato, Jason Puglisi, Saveetha Raghupathi, Baljot Ranu, JP Ranu, Shravali Reddy, Alec Regulski, Ali Riad, Nick Sanders, Matthew Schwartz, Danielle Stepien, Shashank Sundararaman, Brett Vantassel, Arnav Vast, Harrison Young.

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A Visit from Assemblyman Benson and State Senator Greenstein!


Assemblyman Benson and State Senator Greenstein visited Team Nemesis on Saturday, February 18 in the Tech lab. Michelle Principato, Jessica Friedberg, Chris Karousatous and Ralph Petagna welcomed them. The Website team was introduced to them by Michelle, while Jessica introduced the Marketing team and Ralph and Chris introduced the Finance team.

Michelle explained how the website is developed and introduced Ric Principato, the team website mentor, to them. Jessica discussed how the team’s message and current news are spread to the school, community, and corporate sponsors and about fundraising events such as the Shoprite bagging to the Assemblyman and Senator. Ralph explained in-depth how the Finance team manages the team’s money by taking care of the costs of bus transportation, competitions to how much money the team has left over as of the end of this build season.

After the introductions, Assemblyman Benson and Senator Greenstein went to the back of the Tech lab to observe the students working on the robot. Eric Principato provided them with details of this year’s competition and the logistics of the robot. Assemblyman Benson went to the basketball hoops in the hallway and even took some shots at the three hoops. Later, a team picture was taken with them in front of the basketball hoops with Assemblyman Benson and State Senator Greenstein each holding a basketball. This was a great experience for both the team members and the Assemblyman and Senator to discuss robotics. In the end, Assemblyman Benson and Senator Greenstein gave sound bites about Robotics that will be included in the team video.

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An Army Runs on Its Stomach


Anyone who has made it through an FRC build season knows the truth in this statement. Long hours, a crowded lab and little sleep take their toll, and team members often forget that they need to find time to take in some nutrients in order to press on with the challenge at hand. Enter the generous families of team Nemesis. The team has been treated to many bountiful snacks, lunches and dinners; the latest sampling provided by the Gavrushenko family included salad, pasta with meatballs, garlic bread, cookies and cupcakes. After the dinner bell is rung four or five times, the team retreats to the Student Activity Center and eats family style. It's a much needed refueling / breather and also a great team builder. Many thanks to all the families that generously donate their time and the meals that help keep our small army running.

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Nemesis Has ShopRite in the Bag


To relieve the expenses for future trips, Team 2590 members—armed with their very own, handy dandy donation buckets—took part in bagging groceries at the local Hamilton Marketplace ShopRite. The nine-hour long day was divided into slightly less hair-pulling timeslots of three hours, from ten in the morning until closing at seven at night.

As it turns out, ShopRite is actually a zoo on Sundays. Nemesis team members worked hard bagging customers’ groceries—eggs and bread on top, of course. Some helpful customers thought to offer endless constructive criticism about the art of bagging groceries. Fortunately, we all learned something by the end of the day. For instance, when the customer says they would like their groceries in both paper and plastic, Al learned to avoid lectures by placing the paper bags into the plastic ones (word of advice for all readers).

After a long, grueling day of particular “my-meat-cannot-touch-the-veggies” customers, the team satisfyingly went home with a whopping $1600.

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Robotics Discovery Day 2011


"I think I'm going to be an engineer one day," said a camper as he proudly held his newly created robot, preparing to release it onto the track. 

This boy and many other enthusiastic children took part in the RHS Robotics Discovery Day, hosted by Robbinsville High School FIRST Robotics Team 2590 Nemesis. The event was held on Saturday, December 3 and aimed to teach 2nd through 5th grade boys and girls the basics of robotics while having fun. Robotics team CEO Eric Principato said, "Robotics Discovery Day allows kids to learn about robots and helps them to pursue their interest in science and technology."

“My favorite part of this camp was making my robot, Speedy. I can't wait to make an even bigger robot when I get to high school.”

Upon arrival, the campers were split into three groups. All campers created simple and fun Bristle-bots out of toothbrushes, a vibrating motor, and a battery. Returning campers worked with "LEGO MINDSTORMS," a computer program to create code for autonomous robots. The kids worked in pairs with an RHS Robotics Team member, who was their mentor. After the design and build process, they raced their robots. Kids who were participating for the third or fourth time created sumo wrestler robots that competed to push the other out of the way.

The room bustled with activity all day. Over sixty enthusiastic young engineers made their own unique robots that could do many things using sensors like following a line on the ground, racing toward a wall and turning at the last moment, and even catapulting objects across the room.

The team worked hard to spread the enthusiasm of building and programming robots, and received a lot of positive feedback. "My favorite part of this camp was making my robot, Speedy. I can't wait to make an even bigger robot when I get to high school," said one camper. 

To give the kids a taste of the high school level, everyone drove the team's competition robot, Andy. Working with the high school robotics team ignited the spark in the future generation as they applied their knowledge to create their own designs.

Robotics Discovery Day has continued to be a great fundraising event for the award-winning RHS FIRST Robotics Team, which is going to compete at multiple Mid-Atlantic events and the Montreal regional competition. The funds will be used to buy parts and materials for the robot and cover traveling expenses for the team. Please contact Mrs. Joy Wolfe, Robbinsville High School, 155 Robbinsville-Edinburg Road, Robbinsville, NJ, 08691, if you would like to make a donation.

Click here to see pictures from Robotics Discovery Day.

 

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Nemesis Teams up with Sharon School to Give Back


Robbinsville High School’s FIRST Robotics Team is a program dedicated to developing students’ problem-solving abilities through the hands-on construction of a competition robot. Although the team focuses with science and technology skills, it also strives to embody the values of Gracious Professionalism in which we channel our commitments to bettering the community.

The team celebrated the holiday season by giving back—organizing a food drive with the Sharon Elementary School. Over 600 canned and boxed non-perishable goods were collected during the holiday season. The winning class, Miss Raymond’s first-grade class, collected a total of 73 food items and received a plaque honoring their hard work. All of the food collected was donated to the local Robbinsville Food Pantry to aid families in need.

The Nemesis Robotics students created the custom designed personalized plaque in Illustrator and engraved the design in acrylic using the RHS laser engraver. The students learned how to make the plaque in their Digital Fabrication class.

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Nemesis Team Member Selected for Governor's School of Engineering and Technology


FRC 2590 Nemesis team member Eric Principato was chosen from a pool of top students from New Jersey schools to participate in the Governor’s School of Engineering and Technology, a 4-week residential summer school held at Rutgers University’s Busch campus.  Applicants must be nominated by their high schools, with each school able to nominate one applicant for every 325 members of their junior class.  The Admissions committee generally receives between 300 and 400 applications.  “Of the nominees, who are the best and brightest students at their respective schools, fewer than 25% generally receive offers of admission,” according to the GSET website.  Being selected as a finalist to this competitive program is a huge honor.

The program took place from June 26th to July 22nd.  Students got a taste of college life as they moved into their dorm rooms and took engineering and technology classes, some of which were taught by professors.  In addition to basic courses like physics, students had a choice to take electives related to their personal interests.  In his class on biodiesel, Eric had the opportunity to discuss alternate forms of energy and actually create samples of biofuels.  In Polynomiography, he worked with software developed by a Rutgers professor that allowed users to create art with math.  Working with a group, Eric was able to design, build, and test an 8-foot tall, wooden trebuchet for a class on catapults.  When it came time for Robotics, Eric’s FIRST experience came in very handy—his team won the robot soccer competition, having used LEGO Mindstorms and LABview to create and program their winning robot design. 

Despite their busy academic schedule, students still found time to have fun with foosball and soccer competitions and a surprise dance party while a talent show and art show allowed them to show off their skills.  Students also signed up for “Life Skills” classes which covered a range of topics, from “How to Do Laundry” to “African Drumming.”  Field trips to Google, PSEG Nuclear, Lockheed Martin, NASTAR, Bloomberg, ProtoCAM, and the Federal Aviation Administration, among others, gave students the opportunity to tour the company’s facilities and learn about their work in engineering and technology.

Students were also divided into groups of 4 or 5 to complete a research project.  Eric described the process of his research on Autonomic Computing, explaining that, “We worked with a mentor in the Computer Science department and had to autonomically cool the temperature in a series or servers, write a paper, and give a final presentation.”  Each group presented their research to an audience of family and peers at the end of the program. 

Eric says of the overall experience, “It was a great opportunity to meet people with similar interests and to explore my passion for engineering, while also getting a taste of college and dorm life.”

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About Us | 2010-2011


It was a snowy Saturday morning as Team Nemesis congregated at Montgomery High School for the FIRST Robotics Competition Kickoff. The group consisted of memorable seniors, adept juniors, hardworking sophomores, and inexperienced yet dedicated freshmen. Leading the group were our faithful mentors and teachers. Team 2590 soon learned about the new game, LOGO MOTION.

For the next six weeks the team spent hours upon hours together; Build Season had begun. Pizza became our worst enemy, sleep our distant relative, and the Robotics team our family. Members lived in the depths of the Tech Lab and on weekends were consumed entirely. The moment we walked in, we broke up into our separate sub teams: Build, Finance, Marketing, Software, and Web. 

Every club needs money to exist; Robotics is no different. A handful of devoted students, the Finance Team of Nemesis, handled all donations and expenses. From requesting grants to organizing fundraisers, the team ensured that we had money to build our robot and travel comfortably to competitions. The Finance team managed travel, food, and supply costs. They balanced the books, wrote the Business Plan, and kept our team breathing. The Shoprite Bagging, Robotics Discovery Day, and new T-shirt sales were run by them. The members of the Finance Team owned a business and were the fuel to Nemesis’s 2011 Build Season.

Marketing worked tirelessly to perfect the Chairman’s Award and to redesign the website all throughout the year.  Countless hours were spent working to create the Chairman’s Award essay, video, and presentation.  Documenting the team’s progress through a series of journals and photos became a daily task. The Web team beautified the website with a significant redesign. Now easy to navigate, informative articles and artistic photographs cover the website. The team’s efforts were successful; Nemesis won the Best Website Award at the New Jersey Regional.   In addition to recreating the website, Team 2590 also decided to update the team logo.  Marketing and Web had a successful year in 2011.

Our robot began as a combination of ideas and sketches. The Build Team branched out to experiment with every concept brainstormed. The mentors guided and taught each individual member the secrets of t-slot, pneumatics, PVC pipes, and zip-ties.  From bolts, screws, and wood, models of the different parts materialized. Nemesis mended the pieces together as the robot took shape and manifested itself in the form of metal. The compressor roared to life as the robot took its first breath and soared across the high school floor. At 11:00 PM on Tuesday, February 22, 2011, our robot was “bagged and tagged”. The team sat in anticipation until the day they would bring the robot to life again in a heated competition. 

Nemesis went on to compete in the New Jersey and Washington DC regionals, winning the Best Web Site Award in New Jersey.  The team thoroughly enjoyed the competitions and freshmen were quoted saying it was one of the greatest events of their young lives.  Making it to the elimination rounds in both competitions, the robot and drive team performed admirably. It was a late Saturday evening when Team Nemesis shut down the lab and went home, eager for next year’s build season.

 

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Nemesis 2590 Takes on 2011 DC Regional


The evening of Wednesday, March 23rd--after competing in the NJ Regional-- it was finally time to depart for Washington, DC to compete for our 2nd regional this season. Everyone looked forward to this day for a very long time and were ecstatic to finally arrive at L’Enfant Plaza Hotel. The team split into their rooms, following an evening of watching movies and playing card games with each other.

Thursday morning came around and the team woke up bright and early for the practice rounds—using the Metro to get to the competition held at Walter E. Washington Convention Center. The pit crew set up for the long day ahead while the scout team prepared to observe the matches. For lunch, we dined at one of the restaurants in DC’s Chinatown. The Marketing team enjoyed themselves by going sightseeing at the Museum of Natural History before joining the rest of the group at dinner in the Capital.

On Friday, the autonomous mode worked consistently and thankfully, so did the minibot. Scouting was absolute torture. There were only a handful of people who were able to assist with this task, spread out to scout over sixty teams. Needless to say, it was a bit stressful. While the scout team carefully watched each team compete, our drivers—Eric and Matt—were fortunately able to complete a logo with the tubes every round.

At last, Saturday finally arrived. After finishing off the final seeding rounds, Team Nemesis 2590 finished in 6th place out of the 63 teams. Since the top 8 of these teams had to pick two other teams for their alliance, we were able to choose Team 378, the Circuit Stompers and Team 1511, Rolling Thunder for our alliance partners.

Our alliance battled phenomenally—winning 2/3 of the quarter-final matches and proceed into the semi-finals. During the first round, a cable was knocked loose on Nemesis’ cable which made our driver station lose connection—rendering our robot motionless and we lost to our opponents. In the second round, we tied for most of the game, however we lost the minibot race in the end—concluding our part in this year’s DC Regional.

Despite the loss, Nemesis was proud to have reached the semi-finals and celebrated at dinner that night. Despite the sadness that the season was reaching its final stages, no one could argue that the team had become one family and the 2011 season would never be forgotten; we went home satisfied that Saturday evening. panoramicdcarena

After the official competition season ended for Nemesis, we started working on other events to promote the FIRST message and team bonding. Recently, we participated in a walk for Multiple Sclerosis and plan on joining similar charity events in the near future.

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2011 New Jersey Regional


FIRST Team 2590 Nemesis kicked off the LOGO MOTION competition season at the New Jersey Regional on March 3-5.  After passing inspection at a weight of 119.8 pounds, we prepped the robot and tested our driving on the practice field.  We made it to the Quarter-finals and won the Website Award!

At the regional, autonomous mode worked well and we consistently placed three tubes per match.  Our main problem was the minibot, which failed to align properly, preventing it from climbing the pole.  Finally, during the last qualifying match, the robot was lined up at the pole and as everyone in the stands had hoped, the minibot finally made it up the pole.  Thanks to the success of the minibot in the last match, we were picked by the fourth alliance to compete in the Quarter-finals. 

Unfortunately, the minibot did not work in the elimination rounds.  If we had gotten it up the tower in both Quarter-final matches, we would have advanced to the semi-finals.  Overall, the team’s hard work during the build season paid off as we were able to succesfully compete with our robot and the experience we have gained from this event will allow us to improve the robot as the team gears up for the Washington D.C. Regional

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Through The Eyes of the Freshmen: 2011 Season


A Creative Piece by Our Freshmen Team Members

Freshmen are the newest kids to join the Robotics team.  We have now survived our first season of the legendary Build.  *cue epic music – Lord of the Rings soundtrack* We spent more time in this school, in this room, than we did with our family, our homes, and even our beds.  We slept for only a few hours, ate only when we were told, and bathed not quite frequently enough.  Instead, we were here –writing our name, our legacies into the making of the 2011 robot.

It all started during the pre season.  These nights were short and simple.  We learned the ropes of Gracious Professionalism™.   We even had a competition in the pre season.  Our hearts were bold and our minds were strong.  We made new friends, fought old enemies, and experienced victory and defeat.   We helped children and showed them what we were all about.  Then the days of happiness ended and we traveled to the Mad Land of Montgomery.  The FIRST Gods spoke of an impending depression that would blanket the world.  We freshmen had no idea what they were speaking of.  A so-called menace, known as “The Build Season” was all we understood and our hearts grew weary.  The team returned to their home of Robbinsville intrigued and hungry.  Unfortunately, a few could not handle the pressure.  They fled the land and became outcasts to the team – merely peasants that would come and go on short occasions.  Their names were lost to the sands of time.

These were dark times for 2590 Nemesis. The Ancient Beast, Andy, the 2010 robot, refused to communicate with our new tools.  As we struggled to test our new code, the build team failed to sort through the massive sea of ideas. But through the darkness, hope arrived. In the third week, software had a breakthrough. The old robot awoke. With this new opportunity to test our software, our code grew. The software team strove ahead, while build struggled behind.

With only two weeks left, people were getting worried.  They buckled down to work and soon rediscovered the forgotten pneumatics.  They created the claw which was the weapon needed to fight their enemies.  The robot was coming together.  The monster was being brought to life. There were only so many days left and the final touches were needed.

The last (extended) weekend (Thank you dead presidents)– those four days were spent working.    From the crack of dawn to 11:00 at night, we worked. We worked with all of the determined dedication that we could muster. We attempted to finish in time for a pre-challenge skirmish, but this deadline passed us. Still, we worked. On the final day, without hours to spare, we achieved victory. Everything fell into place, the robot could drive with the grace of a deer, and it could autonomously accomplish its great task.  We had won.  We are the freshmen.

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