We are excited about the game Rapid React. We currently have six registered youth team members and four adult mentors although not all were able to make it to the kick-off event January 8th at Onalaska Lutheran High School. The team enjoyed Domino’s Pizza when we returned to Winona to open the kit of parts.
The game this year utilizes an oversized tennis ball. Robots may control up to two balls. Points are earned by scoring the ball into a central hub. One point is scored for the lower hub, two points for the upper hub. At the end of the match, robots earn points traversing an increasing height of monkey bars. The higher the robot climbs, the more points it earns.
The team has been prototyping a pneumatic lever launch system. We’ve finished building the frame. Teams are required to build the robot during the season and can’t simply re-use parts, with a few exceptions, from previous years or off-season building. We’ll be using new, brushless motors with encoders that will give us better autonomous control and variable power.
The donated shelving from Fastenal has tremendously improved our storage and space constraints within our room. We had limited funding reserves coming into the school year. We had to make the difficult decision to compete only in the FRC. Hopefully sponsors will continue to support the Winona Robotics financially to cover team registration and expenses. We’d like to resume competing in the FTC in the fall as well as the FRC next school year.
Thank you for your support as we grow the team during the Covid challenges.
