Charlie, our newest mentor wanted to post this great paper "Omnidirectional Drive Systems" (PDF) by Ian Mackenzie 

A bunch of us are meeting at the school Saturday Morning and driving to the local kickoff.   The classroom will be an alternative viewing area for people that are not going to the kickoff. 

Tell your friends to tune in at home online and on NASA TV: January 9th, 2010. The presentation runs from 10:00AM EST to 12:30AM EST

    http://robotics.nasa.gov/

mr lotts.

As the new school year has begun, the new robotics season has also started. Even though kick-off isn't until January, the team has been holding meetings every Tuesday after school in Mr. Ballou's room to get things organized and to be prepared for whatever might come our way.
 
This year, the team is hoping to be able to assist other teams that need help, and to be open for any questions posed by others.

Congratulations to Cricket Moore! Cricket was honored tonight with the inaugural Outstanding Volunteer Award at the 2009 FRC Washington, DC Regional. This award is a testamony to Cricket's dedication and hard work, for which we are all very grateful. Well done, Cricket!

Yesterday, Thursday the 26, the team played in several practice rounds. The practice rounds helped the team make adjustments to the robot to help it play the game better. Today, Friday, the team will be playing in 5 seeding rounds. The times of those are as follows (subject to change):

The D.C. regional competition is in less than one week  away on February 26, 27, and 28.  It is being held in the Convention Center. If you would like to watch the webcast of the event live, click here.

We are now registered for the Washington, DC regional competition on February 26th, 27th, and 28th. This is the first weekend of FRC competitions.

What is FIRST Robotics?

• Five years ago, George Mason High School enrolled in a robotics competition sponsored by FIRST, (For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology). FIRST is a prestigious organization founded over a decade and a half ago by Dean Kamen, an inductee into the Inventors' Hall of Fame and founder of DEKA Research and Development Corp. The goal of FIRST it to inspire high school students to pursue careers in engineering and the sciences.

On Friday morning, part of the team left to go up to the Battle O'Baltimore at The Park School in Baltimore, Maryland. That afternoon, the team had time to do several practice rounds so that the new drive team could get practice driving with other teams.

Over the past couple days, Andrew and Matthew have been busy driving, testing, and troubleshooting the robot. They have removed the power diverter box which was causing several problems. We are going to try and compete without it, but if they make us use it, it has been fixed so it can be used again. Other than that, they have not had any more major problems with the robot.