The FIRST Robotics Competition 2009 season was Saturday, January 3.
Throughout fall of 2008, TALON 540 prepared for kickoff. In addition to training new members and familiarizing them with the FIRST competitions, plans were made as to how the team would approach kickoff day.
Because of the large number of members on the team, not everyone could attend the local kickoff event at Virginia Commonwealth University. Along with TALON 540 lead mentor Mr. Hurlburt, about seven student group leads attended the kickoff. Other leads and the rest of the team convened to watch the kickoff video stream at school.
The FRC 2009 game presentation was broadcasted from Manchester, New Hampshire. Many of the speakers prior to the announcement of this season’s game focused on the importance of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, as 2009 is the 40th anniversary of the first man on the moon. This season’s game, Lunacy, was presented through an animation as well as a demonstration
Following the announcement of the game, team members set out to analyze the game and completely understand how to play it. With that, the team set out to form a strategy to use for the game. The process included a team discussion as well as brainstorming within smaller groups. The different strategies were then presented to everyone and discussed; a strategy team will be working throughout the season to communicate with other robotics teams and to develop the best strategy possible.
The second phase was a design brainstorming session. After developing a general sense of how TALON 540 will approach the game, the team broke down into smaller groups to come up with different designs based on strategy. The groups included veteran team members, rookie members, as well as adult mentors. The design discussion led to deciding on a particular robot to prototype.
Saturday evening, TALON 540 hosted a dinner to introduce the game to parents of team members. The presentation of the 2009 season game and explanation of TALON 540’s build season game plan was aimed at integrating parents into the process. Kickoff weekend was the culmination of weeks of preparation as well as the beginning of a challenging build season. Kick-Off Images
Competition Information:
Lunacy Game Description
Lunacy Manual
Control System Manual Information
Hardware Information
Labview Information
Training and Videos
Lunacy Deadlines