FIRST Robotics Mentor
SMAbotics, Team 5493
After spending my high school years on WildStang, my winters felt empty without robotics. In my freshman and sophomore years at the University of Denver, I spent my spring breaks volunteering at the FRC Colorado Regional, held in my back yard at the University of Denver’s Ritchie Center. As it turns out volunteering at the regional competition just wasn’t enough; I was way too close to the action to keep myself from getting involved. On the lookout for teams that were close by, great people to work with, and could use a mentor, I found SMAbotics and I couldn’t be happier.
The team
This is my team. Located out of St. Mary’s Academy (putting the SMA in SMAbotics), these young ladies are out to prove that robots are for girls!
build a robot in a day
To cap off the Fall Training leading up to the build season, our team split up into 4 groups and squared off against each other in some friendly competition. The goal is to prepare for the havoc and fast pace of build season. During build season, we have 6 1/2 weeks to build a robot that answers FIRST’s challenge. Once this is over, our team will have another 5 weeks to hone in our strategies and practice our driving skills with our prototype robot.
Building the official drive base
At the moment this picture was taken, we were just beginning to put together the official drive base. Lining everything up, clamping it in place, and driving the rivets home, we had a beautiful 6-wheel drop center base which we could build the rest of the robot off of. By the end of the season, we had a fully installed “hatch panel” manipulator AND “cargo” manipulator / shooter. I couldn’t be more proud of everyone on the team and how far they came in such a short amount of time.