Blog

School Board Meeting-May 12, 2022

A few of our team members joined Botetourt County 4-H during their presentation to the Botetourt County Public Schools board meeting. Teammate Ethan gave a brief synopsis of the team, their Gracious Professionalism award, and stats coming out of regionals. Ethan also gave a very heartfelt thanks to everyone from the school for their ongoing support of the 4H Robotics program.

4-H Expo-February 19, 2022

Our team headed to Lord Botetourt High School to participate in the 4-H Expo with our cornhole robot. People who came got to compete against our robot in a game of cornhole while learning about what we do in robotics.

Precision Steel Tour-November 05, 2019

Precision Steel let us take a tour of their facility and made a custom piece for our robot. Precision Steel has been a long-time sponsor of the team. Jeff and Vicki Amos are the owners of Precision Steel and gave us our tour. A big thanks to Precision Steel and all of their workers. Here are some pictures from the tour!

Blue Ridge Brawl - 2019-October 09, 2019

Team 3939 joined 15 other robots to compete in Destination: Deep Space at the 2019 Blue Ridge Brawl. The team journeyed just a few short miles south to Salem High School to this inaugural Off Season event. Host Team 5724 – Spartan Robotics (led by Randy Brinkley – Team 3939’s founding mentor) put on a great show. Team members volunteered as Field Reset Crew and Scorers – team mentors helped to queue robots and even acted as Referee. We have next year’s event on our calendar already – Infinite Recharge at the Blue Ridge Brawl!

Interview of Will Johnson-February 23, 2018

What is your name?

Will Johnson

What grade are you in?

8th grade at Central Academy.

What do you do in robotics?

I help build the robot.

Why did you join robotics?

I wanted something more hands on and challenging after school.

How long have you been with the Team?

This is my second year.

What is you plan after high school?

I wish to attend the engineering program at Virginia Tech.

What do you do outside of school?

I volunteer and I am in the Marching Band.

What’s your favorite part about robotics?

Building the robot.

Interview of Marthe Honts-February 22, 2018

What is your name?

Marthe Honts

What is your job outside of robotics?

I help write grants for faculty at Virginia Military Institute.

What is your main job on the team?

I am the head mentor and help out on the Operations Team

What is your favorite part of robotics?

I like the prototyping and figuring out everything with your hands.

Is there anything you would change?

I would love for us to have a dedicated space to use.

How has robotics made your life different?

It has helped me to think about what business skills I can teach people to use in the real world.

Interview of Tim Wilson-February 21, 2018

What is your name?

Tim Wilson

What grade are you in?

I am in 7th grade.

What do you do in robotics?

I build parts on the robot and I help with the website.

Why did you join robotics?

Because it looked fun

How long have you been with the Team?

2 years

What is your plan after high school?

I would like to go to MIT

What do you do outside of school?

I play piano and chess

What’s your favorite part about robotics?

I like watching the robot compete.

Interview of Ethan Johnson-February 20, 2018

What is your name?

Ethan Johnson

What grade are you in?

11th Grade

What do you do in robotics?

Build Team, CAD

Why did you join robotics?

I had an interest in engineering

How long have you been with the Team?

4 years

What is you plan after high school?

Go to college for engineering

What do you do outside of school?

Video games

What’s your favorite part about robotics?

Making a robot. The building process and then seeing it all come together.

Interview of Shannon Filer-February 19, 2018

What is your name?

Shannon Filer

What grade are you in?

9th Grade

What do you do in robotics?

I’m on the build team, and on the Strategic Council.

Why did you join robotics?

I wanted an intellectual activity that could teach me life skills that I could use later.

How long have you been with the Team?

I have been on the team for 3 years

What is your plan after high school?

I plan on going to a 4-year university to major in physics or astrophysics, and minor in creative writing or piano.

What do you do outside of school?

I do many things, like play piano, oboe, saxophone, guitar, I am in the marching band, jazz band, concert band, and I do karate, dance, Girl Scouts, Help Save the Next Girl, D&D Club, reading, writing, coloring, and acting.

What’s your favorite part about robotics?

I like the intellectual environment and where everyone is still enjoying themselves while working.

Interveiw of Kyle Hayslett-February 09, 2018

Kyle is the most veteran student on our team this year and is also the Design Team Leader.

What grade are you in?

I’m in 12th grade at James River High School.

What do you do in robotics?

I do a little bit of everything but I mostly work on the robot

Why did you join robotics?

A friend suggested it to me and I found that it is very fun.

How long have you been with the Team?

6 years

What is you plan after high school?

Go to Virginia Tech or Virginia Western and major in general engineering.

What do you do outside of school?

I play a LOT of video games.

What’s your favorite part about robotics?

Building the robot.

Week 4 in Pictures-February 04, 2018

Team Member Interviews!-February 04, 2018

Starting this week we will be sending you interviews of our team members. I hope this helps you better understand our team! This is an interview of Ryan Aaron.

What is your name?

Ryan Aaron

What grade are you in?

7th grade at Central Academy Middle School

What do you do in robotics?

I work on the Pit Game and file metal so no one scratches themselves on it.

Why did you join robotics?

To be with friends.

How long have you been with the Team?

3 months, this is my first year.

What is you plan after high school?

To go college.

What do you do outside of school?

I work with with my dad.

What’s your favorite part about robotics?

The teamwork.

Newsletter from 2/2-February 03, 2018

This week we focused on the Pit Game and the competition robot. The Pit Game is like a modified game of plinko. You drop your chip from the top and it falls into a certain section that says how many points you get if you answer a question correctly.If you answer a question wrong, you just try again. We incorporated the Power-Up design into our plinko board by attaching classic video game characters to decorate the board. The whole point of the pit game is to promote safety in the pit area during competitions so we have many questions about overall competition safety. For the robot, we plan to have it done by Sunday so we can practice driving it for the competitions. We made another base to practice driving after we bag the robot. This is the point where we can’t do anything with the robot until competitions. We have been able to grab the cube with our arms very well. Unfortunately, the raising and lowering shaft is not coming along as well as we hoped. We are constantly fixing any problems we find. The electronics are all attached and allow us to use a controller to maneuver our robot. Just today, we successfully picked up a cube and dropped it in our “switch”. This is going to be our main way of getting points.

Photos from Week 3!-January 26, 2018

Learning about Gantt charts!-January 26, 2018

Today, Reid Johnson, a manager at Harris, showed the whole team a presentation about Gantt charts. A Gantt chart is a project management tool that shows how much time you have spent on one part of the project and how much time you have left to finish the project. It may appear, to the untrained eye, to be a fancy bar graph, but it is really a fast, easy way to see what needs to happen and how they are related to each other. You can create labels for different sections of the project and nest smaller parts underneath. We are using a Gantt chart to document our progress on the robot this year so we can look back and see what we spent too much (or too little) time on. Thanks Reid!

Thank You Sponsors!-January 26, 2018

The work of Team 3939 would not be possible without the support of our generous sponsors. Every member of the team is grateful for the new opportunities you have created for this team to continue to develop. Your donations are used to buy needed parts for our robot to operate at its fullest potential. Pneumatics for the grabbing mechanism, gear boxes for climbing and driving, and pulleys for the lifting mechanism were purchased to construct a clean and efficient machine. This year so far we have spent almost $1,700 on robot parts alone. That’s a big part of our budget! Our robot is now driving and lifting Power Cubes, and it is only week three! Our future projects include the construction of a second robot for driving practice and attaching the climbing mechanism to the frame of the robot. The success of the robot is inspiring many of the team members to begin to try new things, acquire new skills, and delve deeper into the world of STEM. And we could not do it without your support. Thank you.

With sincere gratitude, Team 3939

Pictures from Week 2-January 19, 2018

#MakeItLoud for FIRST Suppliers!-January 19, 2018

Without these suppliers, our FRC Kit of Parts wouldn’t be available for all of the FRC teams. FIRST is having a contest where you take a picture of your favorite item from the kit of parts on Twitter or Instagram. Use the hashtag #FIRSTsuppliers and tag the suppliers. Any registered FIRST teams who enter will be put in a drawing for Vintage FIRST Swagger! It doesn’t get any better than that! See the site below for more information.

https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc/blog/

FIRST Scholarships Are Avalible! Deadlines Soon!-January 19, 2018

FIRST has over $50 million in scholarships for graduating seniors. Any FIRST participants or alumni are eligible for these scholarships but the deadlines will be here soon. Even if you’re not a senior, you might want to check out some of the scholarships so you know the requirements.

Photos from Week 1-January 13, 2018

FIRST Power-Up! ROBOTS! ROBOTS! ROBOTS!-January 12, 2018

The FRC theme is FIRST Power-Up. Your team is placed on an alliance of three teams that must battle against another alliance for points. During the game, robots maneuver “Power Cubes” represented by yellow milk crates and then climb a small bar in the middle of the field in the last thirty seconds of the match. Cubes can be placed on teeter totters that are located on either side of the field and in the middle of the field. The one in the middle is called the “scale” and each alliance has one smaller “switch” in front of their wall. For every second your team controls either the switch or the scale, you get one point. You control the switch and the scale when the side with your alliance’s color has more cubes than the other. Cubes can also be sent behind the team wall for a Power-Up.

The Power-Ups include:

Power-Up	One Cube	Two Cubes	Three Cubes
Focus	Gives your team control of your switch for ten seconds.	Gives your team control of the scale for ten seconds.	Gives your team control of the switch AND the scale for ten seconds.
Boost	Gives your team double points for your switch if you control it.	Gives your team double points for the scale if you control it.	Gives your team double points for the switch and the scale if you control it.
Levitate	Can’t be used with one cube.	Can’t be used with two cubes.	One robot on your alliance gets a free climb.

A match is 2 minutes and 30 seconds long. The first 15 seconds are called “Autonomous”. The robot runs on a program since you cannot control your robot. The rest of the match is referred to as “Tele-Operated”. This is when the team can take control of their robot and start racking up points! Most of the robot is focused on the Tele-Operated period. The last 30 seconds of the match, or “End Game”, is the only time your robot can climb the bar. The bar is only thirteen inches long, so it is a fight for space when three 100 lb. robots try to grab onto the tiny bar. Just hope they don’t fall!

We�re devoted!-January 12, 2018

We’ve been working really hard on our robot and other team activities! Since the our first meeting, September the 9th, the entire team of 29 members (including mentors) has put in 767 hours!

Our top 6 members’ hours.

About our Strategic Council-January 09, 2018

About our Strategic Council

Preseason Newsletter 2017/2018

This year our team is structured a bit differently than last time. Our team is now led by a Strategic Council which includes: a President, a Design Team Leader, an Operations Team Leader, and two ad hoc members. Instead of having one president this year, we have two co-presidents, Anthony Etzler and Logan Honts. Our Design team leader is Kyle Hayslett who will be in charge of the robot design and fabrication. The Operations team leader is Georgia Honts who will be in charge of the non-robot side of things like: budget, press, website, and fundraising. The other Strategic Council members are Catherine Amos and Shannon Filer. This year Anthony, Logan, and Catherine are juniors in high school and attend the Regional Academy at Virginia Western Community College. Kyle is a senior at James River High School and this will be his sixth year on the team. Shannon started high school this year and goes to Roanoke Valley Governor’s School. It is Georgia’s second year in Central Academy Middle School and her second year on the team. Congratulations Strategy Council Members!

Christmas Parade-January 09, 2018

On December 2nd and 16th, our robotics team took part in the Christmas Parades in Fincastle and Buchanan. We put together a float idea that incorporated robotics and our FIRST FRC theme, FIRST Power Up. Our float includes the Pac-man ghosts, and Pac-man himself, dressed as characters from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. The ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future followed behind our float while Scrooge and Tiny Tim rode in the back of a pickup. On the side of the pickup, were signs that read ‘Tonight you will be visited by 3 ghosts’ and a sign on the front had our team name and logo. Following behind the ghosts was an arcade machine robot, a sign that read GAME OVER, and some of the fruits that gain you extra points in the game. Our ghosts in the parade transformed into the slower, weaker versions of themselves when Pac-man ate the Power Pellet.

We hope to spread the word so we can get more members and reach out to new sponsors. All of our team members are worked very hard to put together our costumes and props.

We Like Robotics!-June 08, 2017

We are Team 3939 Botetourt 4-H Robotics! This is our website so feel free to explore.