Hey guys! Boy do we have news for you!

Our team entered our second meet with confidence, a smile, and working robot. With it being our second competition we had a prior knowledge that would help to our advantage.

Our first four matches we were anywhere between 1st and 3rd place. With an amazing drive team and allies through those matches we were able to win 4/6. As a result of losing our last two matches, we sadly finished 11th out of about 32 other teams.

But! A top team call the RoboToasters chose us, as their first alliance partner pick! We played the semi-finals and with a working robot on our side we had a good chance of making it further, sadly we did not.

But that’s no all. We were presented the the judges choice award. A runner up for multiple awards including: the motivate award, the Rockwell Collins Innovative award, and last but certain lay not least the… wait for it… 2nd place for the Inspire award! Given to the teams as the FTC ‘role model’with the second place being a ticket to states. Wait for it…

We advanced!!! Our team has never been more excited and proud than ever before. And we look forward to going in the adventure of life time at states! Stay tuned for more information.Battle Creek here we come ready to crunch some cereal!!!

A synopsis on the awards…

From Bedford Express Qualifier:

Inspire Award:(2nd place)
The Inspire Award is given to the Team that the Judges felt truly embodied the ‘challenge’ of the FTC program. This Team serves as an inspiration to what this program, and the young minds involved, can accomplish. The Team that receives this Award has performed well in all Judging categories and was chosen by the Judges as a model FIRST Tech Challenge Team. The Judges use Match performance, observations made during interviews and in the pit area, the Team’s Engineering Notebook, and performance on the playing field in determining the winner.

Rockwell Collins’ Innovate Award: (Nominee)
The Rockwell Collins Innovate Award celebrates a Team that not only thinks outside the box, but also has the ingenuity and inventiveness to make their designs come to life. This Award is given to the Team that the Judges feel has the most Innovative and Creative Robot design solution to the FIRST Tech Challenge to any or all specific field elements or components. Elements of this Award include elegant design, robustness and ‘out of the box’ thinking with regard to design. This Award may address the design of the whole robot or some sub-assembly component attached to the robot. The creative component needs to work consistently, but a robot does not have to work all of the time during Matches to be considered for this Award. The Team’s Engineering Notebook shows the design of the component(s) and the Team’s robot, and succinctly describes how the Team arrived at that solution.

Motivate Award: (Nominee)
This Judged Award celebrates the Team that exemplifies the essence of the FIRST Tech Challenge competition through Team building, Team spirit and exhibited enthusiasm. This Team celebrates their Team, their individuality and their spirit through Team attire, and exhibits their outstanding Team spirit. This Teams enthusiasm and spirit motivates others to embrace the culture of the competition and FIRST. The Team has also made a collective effort to make FIRST known throughout their school and community.

Judges Award: (Winner)
The Judges Award is given at the discretion of the Judges to a Team they have encountered whose unique efforts, performance or dynamics merit recognition, yet the Team does not fit into any of the existing Award categories.

From Hartland Qualifier:

Think Award: (Winner)
The Think Award is given to the Team that the Judges feel best understands the role of the engineering notebook in the design process. The Engineering Notebook is the key reference for Judges to help them identify the most deserving Team. This Team’s Engineering Notebook focuses on the design and build stages of the Team’s robot and exemplifies their journey as a team and engineers.

Award Synopsis’ from http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/ftc/ftc-awards

As the CSPA Miners walked into Ore Creek Middle School Friday night things weren’t looking good; the issue: an nonfunctional robot… After a near 3 1/2 hours of programming, the team were forced to leave with an once functional program that had all of a sudden stopped working. The next day… The Miners arrived in their red hardhats reluctantly, but still willingly to find the diagnosis to their program. Luckily for them they were given two very important things 1. more time 2. a collection of experienced mentors, coaches as well as other kids from other teams to help them. However, they only could do so much before time ran out. Things were probable. The real test approached: the robot qualification. Basically if the robot (Clem) did not move on a judge’s command within a certain amount of time, The CSPA Miners would be disqualified. But! In the mast 10 possible seconds Clem decided to move qualifying The Miners to compete. Still, Clem didn’t work by controller and this was an issue. This meant one thing… the programmers would have to go back to the drawing board.

After even more vigorous work The Miners along side their mentors got Clem to function, just in time for their first match. This hard work paid off as their alliance had won. Now just minutes later they would once again go at it. This time though they couldn’t get the robot to work, luckily however with the support of our alliance we won. Now we had time to fix the robot, or so we thought… We ended up with another match won but because of our alliance. Now we had time between matches to program and prepare, and we now legitimately thought we had the problem fixed; and technically we did as the robot moved. But, we had an issue with the two controllers we were provided… The issue was they were inverted.

This meant the two controllers were mixed up, and nonfunctional. Our last round came around (after 5 previous) and it worked but just our luck, we lost. However we had won 5/6 which as a rookie team was awesome (even though we couldn’t of done it without our alliances) and we placed as the #6 seed. This meant we had a chance of being part of the qualifying rounds for states and we did make it to semi finals in an alliance with Howell FTC (Team Kaos) and The Steam Stingers. After a valiant effort we lost but as a rookie team placing 6/23 teams and making it to semi-finals was awesome! Just when we thought things were done with…

The award ceremony rolled around. We weren’t expecting any awards (but as a few select of our team found out last year in FLL when you think you of going to get an award you get one) but we received The Think Award for excellence in our Engineer Notebook, which is ironic because we felt this was something we needed drastic work on. We were and still are extremely grateful for many things; the teams that helped us with our program, the parents, coaches, and mentor who helped us get where we went and the learning experienced at our first competition.

But our season isn’t over, so I must get back to the mine for Captains callin’

Good News! Our Robot, Clem ‘The Rock’ Sutter is a moving robot via Logitech controller. The three functions are both analog sticks to move, the ‘x’ button to open the claw, and the right and left bumpers to raise arm. Hopefully I can later post a video, but no promises…

P.S.
If you were wondering about the Robot’s name: Clem ‘The Rock’ Sutter here is our reasoning/origin. Clementine was the name of the daughter of the miner in the song “Oh my Darling, Clementine” and we changed to Clem for short. ‘The Rock’ an alternative title was based off the fact that our team name is the ‘Miners'; also after Dwayne Johnson. Finally Sutter, California was the place of the first gold rush and we felt it fitting to put that in there. So those are the name origins, just our thoughts…

Have a rock-ing day (oh the puns),
Got to go… Clem ‘The Rock’ Sutter

Happy to report that we are almost geared (robot puns) up for our first competition.If you were interested in coming we would love to have you! It is at 3250 Hartland Rd, Hartland, MI 48353, if you cannot make it we will be going to be posting a summary afterwards. Hope to see you there.

Also we are proud to say that we have received our first two sponsors. Kalitta Air and Amico Premium Previsions have made a monetary donation. We thank you very much. If you are interested in making a monetary donation, leave a comment. We appreciate the support and we are excited to do our first competition. Captains calling, got to go back to the mine, see ya. Till next time!

We are making incredible progress on the robot. As of last friday all we have left to do is program and modify the robot. Hopefully we see you at our first ever meet on November 15. Hope to see you there! If you are interested in coming it is at Hartland Middle School (Ore Creek) 10am-5pm (rough estimate).

Once again welcome to our website! I felt it was appropriate to give a background on FTC Robotics. FTC is an acroynm for First Technology Challenge and is a ‘sport for the mind’ that consist of children in grades 7-12. The first season was in 2005 and has been going since. First (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) has created more than a robotics program they have created a community focused on building a better world for tomorrow by engaging students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). Every season (September-May) a team must create a robot that can preform that year’s challenge, show spirit and enthusiasm, keep a log book with activities and reflections, as well as many other tasks. This seasons challenge is called Cascade Effect and if you want to get an idea about it you can watch a video on it at http://youtube/ABmBxCwHV94 or if you are interested at learning more about FTC you are welcome to check it out at http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/ftc. Back to work!!!

Hi everybody! Welcome to the Charly Stockwell Preparatory Academy (CSPA) Miners First Tech Challenge website! We are a first time team and look forward to all of the fun times ahead!