News

This is the current news items about Downingtown Robotics, all the teams: FRC and FTC.

Remember to read about Current Events coming your way.

Techgirlz Robotics Workshop - 23-Sept-2017

Downingtown Area Robotics hosted its second Robotics Workshop in cooperation with Techgirlz. Thanks to Laura and Akhila for organizing and planning this event, and also to Sai and Meghana for instructing. Once again, a great success and a lot of fun.

CCIU Demos - 26-July-2017

Demos performed for Robotics workshops at the CCIU.

MidKnight Mayhem - 17-June-2017

Sab-BOT-age finished qualifications ranked 4^th. We accepted Nemesis' invitation to the 3^rd alliance and Velocity completed our alliance. Alas, we were eliminated in quarterfinals by the 6^th alliance, who went on the become champions.

Young Innovators Fair Demo - 10-June-2017

Team 1640 represented FRC at the Young Innovators Fair in Oaks, PA.

Congratulations to our Graduates

Our graduating students brought the team through a period of amazing growth and success. We thank them and wish them success at University and beyond.

• Madi - Co-Captain - Avon Grove Charter School
• Sullivan - Avon Grove Charter School
• Aashay - Downingtown S.T.E.M. Academy
• Joshua B - Downingtown West High School & CCIU TCHS
• Patrick- Downingtown East High School
• Jarryd - Downingtown East High School

1640 Archimedes Sub-Division CHAMPIONS at FRC Championship - 26-29 April-2017

Despite our middle of the pack ranking, we were the 2^nd pick of the 1^st alliance comprising 1058 (PVC Pirates - Captain), 67 (The HOT Team) and 2137 (T.O.R.C.). Together, we won Archimedes Sub-Division and advanced to Einstein! Unfortunately, we didn't make it to the finals. From a historical perspective, the team has won at the (Sub-)Division level during three of the past five years ( 2013, 2014 & 2017); and finished as Sub-Division Finalist in 2015.

Westtown - 10-12 March-2017

The Westtown event is co-hosted by teams 1391 (based at the Westtown School) and 1640. Steve Compton (1391 Head Mentor) serves as Event Coordinator, while Clem McKown (1640 Head Mentor) serves as Volunteer Coordinator. This was our 2^nd year of co-hosting this event and our experience showed! This event ran much more smoothly than last year's.

This was 1640's first SteamWorks event. How did we do? Okay, but not as well as we imagined. We finished qualifications in 18^th (of 31) with a 5-7-0 record; not impressive. We got 4 rotors running in one qual match, though, and we finished as semifinalist and received the Innovation in Control award for our CVT swerve design & control strategy. We earned 33 points towards MAR qualification and Meghana became a Deans' List semifinalist!

International Society of Pharmaceutical Engineers Event - 16-February-2017

Downingtown Area Robotics attended the Philadelphia annual conference of the Delaware Valley Chapter of the International Society of Pharmaceutical Engineers at the Lincoln Financial Field. Students on the communications team created brochures, business cards, buttons, and a tri-fold display to be used for this event and future outreach projects, and debuted DAR’s new website in public for the first time. Eight FRC and FTC students set up a display table, including a CVT swerve module and a student-welded FTC chassis, and took turns discussing DAR with visitors to the table. Students were able to meet with other vendors at the event, learning professional networking skills, discussing DAR with potential sponsors, and making connections with local companies (securing at least one exciting potential job offer for a DAR student). Students also had the opportunity to tour the Eagles’ locker rooms and stadium, and learn about some of the “green” innovations such as solar panels and waste recycling recently implemented at Lincoln Financial Field.

FRC 1640 alumna and WPI student Lucy Stuehrmann is engaged in the Venice Project Center

Sab-BOT-age alumna Lucy Stuehrmann is helping to unearth Patterns in Venetian History:

• To design and create a web-based system to visualize archaeological data.
• To design and create a mobile app to collect archaeological data.
• To experiment with analytical cross-referencing techniques based on the collected data.
• All this is the project of digital archeology
• Presentation on 14 December to San Lio Church at 16:00

The Venice Project

Downingtown FLL RQT - 10-December-2016

Our 5^th annual regional qualifying tournament. Hosted at the CCIU. With 25 teams, out largest qualifier ever.

D-Town Dustoff - 3-December-2016

Downingtown's fifth annual FIRST LEGO League scrimmage, the D-Town Dustoff, was held at the CCIU TCHS-Brandywine in Downingtown, PA. 26 teams attended, far and away our largest event yet. This non-qualifying event was hosted by Downingtown Area Robotics in cooperation with the TCHS to help area FLL teams gain experience and prepare for their Qualifiers in this year's game, Animal Allies_SM!

Eastern Pennsylvania FTC Qualifying Tournament - 19-November-2016

FTC 7314 was really not ready for this competition. Our competition robot didn't even attend (because robots that move are just so much more interesting than those that don't). So we brought Budget Bot, our prototype chassis. Budget Bot can do just one thing: push the beacon buttons. One important point: it can do this in autonomous, and this is a useful ability.

It turns out that Budget Bot performed well. So did the team. We finished qualifications as 4^th seed and were joined by FTC teams 8528 Rhyme know reason and 7055 Cruzin Comets Alpha to form the 4^th alliance. Alas, the 1^st alliance defeated us in semifinals and went on to win the tournament. Congratulations to 1^st alliance teams 9372 (Standard Model), 9971(LANbros) & 6964 (Team IGUtech) on their victory.

Three DAR volunteers assisted in this event.

MAR Vision Day - 12-November-2016

Team 1640's use of vision processing gave the team a conspicuous competitive advantage during the 2016 season. Laura, the key developer of this vision processing system, led a robotics vision processing workshop for local FRC teams. 18 teams attended.

1640 CHAMPIONS at Ramp Riot - 5-November-2016

This was our first win ever at Ramp Riot! As 1^st Alliance Captain (from a field of 36 teams). FRC Team 1640 (Sab-BOT-age) were joined by alliance partners 225 (TechFire), 321 (RoboLancers) and 272 (Cyber Crusaders). Thank you for pulling together with us for this victory!

We were 5-0-0 in qualifications and 6-0-0 in eliminations. A lossless day.

In addition to willing, we won the 1^st Seed Award.

Clem McKown and Andrew Weissman served as volunteers (Judge & Referee, respectively).

Society of Women Engineers Demonstration - 27 - 29 October-2016

FRC Teams 1640 (Sab-BOT-age) and 341 (Miss Daisy) highlighted FIRST's role in inspiring young women to pursue education and careers in Science and Technology at the 2016 Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Conference on 27 & 28 October.

FTC Team 7314

1640 CHAMPIONS at Duel on the Delaware - 22-October-2016

We finished quals as 1^st seed (of 34) with an official 5-0-0 record which was actually 6-0-0, as we played and won a proxy match (which didn't count for us). We invited teams 341 (Miss Daisy) and 5420 (Velocity) to join us in the 1^st alliance. Our alliance went on to become Champions in 7 hard-fought matches.

The event was also an important training opportunity for the team. Both Eric and Joshua G drove; both Sam and Akhila operated the robot; Becca joined Josh B in the pit.

Havoc - 24-September-2016

A rookie off-season event hosted by FRC 708. This was a first event for a number of our new students. Unfortunately, we really didn't really come ready. Repairs we knew we needed to do weren't done. Systems weren't really working. As a result, the pit was a busy place, fixing all of the problems we had hitherto deferred.

We got our heads back in the game as well. In the end, we did okay and seeded 2^nd in quals with a 5-1-0 record and 16 Ranking Points. 4342 (Demon Robotics) and 5181 (La Salle Robotics) joined our alliance. We did not make it into finals.

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Older news items can be found in:
News Archive 2016
News Archive 2015
News Archive 2014
News Archive 2013
News Archive 2012
News Archive 2011
News Archive 2010
News Archive 2009