NEMESIS PRIME CONDUCTS FIRST SPONSOR APPRECIATION NIGHT

By: Gavin D'Cruz

On June 1st, 2018 Nemesis Prime held their first ever Sponsor Appreciation Night. The goal of this evening was to thank the sponsors, mentors and parents for making Nemesis Prime’s 2017-18 season possible. Nemesis Prime put together a presentation detailing the team’s progress, achievements, and aspirations.  

Primary mentor, Matthew Brady, gave a detailed rundown on the team’s past season. Brady was particularly happy with the team’s nomination for the ‘Think Award”, an award that honors the team that best reflects their journey as they detail their engineering design process during the build season.

Surya Prasad, Nemesis Prime Build Team member, and Gavin D’Cruz, Nemesis Prime Marketing Team member took the stage next and talked about their experiences on a rookie FTC team facing obstacles and challenges they had never faced before.

After the speeches were done, members of all subteams split off to their stations. The Build Team had two stations. One showcased the robot where members gave a demonstration of autonomous and teleoperated modes along with machine agility and robustness. Station two displayed the team’s scouting strategy and the kit of parts showing parents and sponsors what Nemesis Prime works with on a daily basis. The Marketing Team set up a trifold exhibiting their team outreach events,  the season's business plan, and the engineering notebook.

The inaugural Sponsor Appreciation Night was the perfect example of what makes Nemesis Prime special. It was about so much more than robots. The students continued to develop critical life skills like video production, public speaking, thinking on their feet, and presenting.  

Thank you to everyone that attended. Nemesis Prime truly appreciates everyone who supported the team during their rookie year. Without you, Nemesis Prime would still be just a dream.

By Shriya Patel

On Saturday December 2 and Sunday December 3, Nemesis and Nemesis Prime welcomed second through sixth graders to explore the world of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) to Robbinsville High School. The 8th annual Discovery Day has arrived as the campers piled into technology lab to venture into the world of robots. Over the 4-sessions throughout the weekend, students designed, created, and tested their own robots. They were placed in pairs or a group of three to work together with a high school mentor, who aided the excited students.

During Discovery Day, there were challenges given to the students.  Second through fourth graders created robots that can mechanically hit a hockey puck. Both robots created had to strike the hockey puck as well as block it from scoring in their goal.  These robots were controlled by a switch box and connected to two motors. The students competed against opposing teams in a friendly competition.

The second challenge was for students ranging from 4th through 6th grade. These more experienced students were given Lego NXTs to work with. Their challenge was split into 3 sub challenges. The primary challenge was bowling with a wiffle ball and with each sub challenge it became more difficult. Students began first designing and building their robot to just push a ball, later adding a flipping mechanism. After building a working robot, students programed their robots through Lego Mindstorm. Although it was a difficult challenge many of the students successfully completed every level.

The creativity brought into the tech lab surprised many of the high school counselors. The campers’ strategies were not only creative but innovative. As described by sophomore Brandon Yoo, “It was cool seeing such young kids come up with such amazing ideas, and then radiate with excitement and pride once their robot completed the challenge.” Sophomore Hammad Gondal also agreed saying, “It was really exciting to work with kids. They were really smart with their designs and it was funny to see how different they are from myself when I was a kid!”

Students had the opportunity to meet the FLL Team ( First Lego League). The FLL team members and mentors showed their 2017 season robot and promoted the FLL program. They discussed the challenge and demonstrated their robot in action. The excitement grew as the students had the chance to drive Eris, RHS’s FRC 2017 robot. Additionally, the students had the opportunity to dance and play ball with the NAO robot.  

As the event came to an end, pizza was served as students and mentors talked about their experience. One of the students, Sanjana, said “[I] didn’t want to come at first and was forced to, then after experiencing it… I loved it!” The hopes of the students coming next year, freshman Safia Nawaz expressed, “It was a really heart touching and fun experience for me because towards the end of my second session, my two students hugged me because they enjoyed their time at Discovery Day with me as their mentor. It warmed my heart knowing that I made such a difference in their lives, by just guiding them, that they wanted to come back again next year!” Discovery Day 2017 was a huge success. The Nemesis family hopes to see you again next year!

INTRODUCING FTC 14020 NEMESIS PRIME

By Gavin D'Cruz

FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) Team 14020, Nemesis Prime, is a rookie team that consists of 15 students from Robbinsville High School (RHS). Matthew Brady came to RHS with a vision for an FTC team. Like pulling a rabbit out of a hat, Mr. Brady and his three years of FTC experience was able to kick start FTC 14020.  Even though the competition season was well under way, FTC 14020 hit the ground running. With the assistance of the RHS FRC team and a few mentors, FTC 14020 was born. Mentors quickly engaged the students and developed a team organization with 2 sub-teams including build and marketing. During preseason, many team building exercises were performed and transformed a group of individuals into a group of friends who are excited to learn, build, and grow together.

The Build Team’s primary goal is to build a competition-ready robot. After creating a clear strategy, the students have been working non-stop. The team has built many prototypes and designs for the robot to ensure a high likelihood that their design can be executed successfully. The team has to build an intake, a chassis, and other elements in order to compete in this year’s challenge. With the amount of planning and prototyping that the Build Team has done, the team is sure to have a robot that is competition-ready.

The Marketing Team creates the website, develops sponsor relationships, and plans outreach events, as well as tracking the team’s finances.. The Marketing Team constructs articles for the website and local newspapers. This year’s goal for the Marketing Team is to develop writing  and public speaking skills, and develop a strong handshake.

FTC 14020 is excited to compete in their first competition, Sunday, December 17th, at the Southern Scuffle Sunday Qualifier in Williamstown, NJ. All FIRST events are free and open to the public.