NoMythic had the T.E.S.T. competition on Saturday at L H Tanglen Elementary School. Both Torbs and Griffins did terrifically! Torbs placed 7th and Griffins placed 10th overall. Torbs was even picked by the 1st Alliance Captain, allowing them to play in the double-elimination bracket for playoffs.
Everyone was super busy: the builders had fun fixing all of the issues on the robot that arose throughout the day, the programmers were debugging the code, and everyone else was scouting, keeping score, and strategizing. As per the T.E.S.T.’s rules, the drive team changed every match so people had practice driving the huge robots. This will help us build the best drive team possible for the actual season. We also practiced strategy, coopertition, and gracious professionalism at the competition.
NoMythic has been prepping for the upcoming T.E.S.T! On November 12th, we had our team tie dye day. This is a day where we color our signature team tie dye. We dyed our team shirts, and some students brought in their own clothes such as overalls, coveralls, and sweaters. This is a great bonding experience and is a big part of what makes NoMythic unique!
Build is currently split between two teams, Torbs and Griffin, to create two separate robots. Torbs have their robot basically completed, they need to do some small adjustments. Griffin has their drivetrain done and is training people in CAD and machinery, like X-carve!
Programming has been tinkering with motors in order to teach new programmers how to make motors move! They’ve also been working on Java, the swerve robot, and programming the T.E.S.T robot! `
Operations searched for new sponsors, and contacted them along with our old ones! They also worked on the team handbook to make sure it is ready for the team to look at, so that everyone on NoMythic has a way of documenting our processes and traditions.
The new robotics season has officially started! This October, we worked on building team spirit, training new students, and kick-off for this year’s T.E.S.T.! Build has been prototyping and putting their new ideas into CAD (Computer Aided Design). Programming has been training new students to work on code for swerve drive and creating a Wiki for reference. Operations has been working on our sponsor outreach and getting the team back into gear.
The T.E.S.T., formally known as Turtle Trials, stands for Team Experience and Skills Training. T.E.S.T. is a game designed to train students new to FRC. More specifically, it focuses on training students on strategy over complicated robots. This year’s game is called ZONED OUT, which is a game of controlling territories by scoring rings and orbs onto wooden pillars. This game is meant to create more opportunities for more students.
Our team retreat was at the Bakken Museum on October 30th. The main point of this retreat was to bond as a team through a shared experience, in which we talked about past seasons, team values, goal setting, difficult conversations, and team building. We got to experience the entirety of what the museum has to offer and had a wonderful time overall.
On October 31st, NoMythic celebrated Halloween by going to the Allergy-safe Halloween event at the Mall of America. Some of our students worked with our friends from the Minutebots (team 4536) to help kids drive our robots! It was a super fun event, and we got the chance to spark interest in STEM in young kids.
Last week, NoMythic flew back to Minnesota after our trip to Houston where we joined 450 teams from around the world for the FIRST Robotics World Championships. We had a long week of competitions, museum visits, Texas heat, and pure robotics fun. Everyone on the team worked hard and had a blast. We are so glad we had the opportunity to attend.
This year, we broke new ground! We did exceptionally well in our division and,for the first time in NoMythic’s history, we moved on to the quarterfinals! Our design work was recognized with the Imagery Award – another historical first for our team!
Everyone on NoMythic worked incredibly hard on this trip, and we’re so proud of each and every student and mentor who contributed their work and time at this event. Our drive team did an amazing job during matches and figuring out strategies for each match. Our scouting team spent long hours in the stands collecting data for our strategist and drive team to use. Our pit crew spent days working on and fixing the robot. The work put into this competition by each and every team member is phenomenal.
When our team wasn’t hard at work on robotics, we were having fun inside and outside the competition. We had the option to walk around the pits and stands talking to other teams and students at the competition. There were workshops offered by other teams on everything from Fundraising to Programming to Recruiting. Outside the convention center, we bonded as a team. We had a pizza party with two other Minnesota teams, and we played a team-wide game of ninja. On our last night in Houston, we had a bling fashion show and dance party. On Sunday, we visited the Houston Air and Space Museum, where we got to see cool rockets – including a FalconX and the Saturn V!
All in all, we had an incredible time in Houston at Champs. We had so much fun, learned so much, and grew as a team and as people. We’re knocking on wood that we have the chance to go again in 2023!
Team photo in front of the FIRST logoOur pit setup
We just got back from the Minneapolis North Star competition, and have a lot to report! We worked with The Robettes, Windchill, and Technocrats on scouting the competition, gathering valuable data. Meanwhile in the pit, the robot’s reliability and rigidity was being continuously improved by battle-testing it during the matches, where our drive team was busy at work generating strategies to counter the opposing alliance! We ranked 12th by alliance selection, and made our way to become the 7th alliance captain during alliance selection! We made it to quarterfinals with our alliance, and to top it off, during the awards ceremony we won the Excellence in Engineering Award!
