Quick Updates!

3/01/08 UPDATE!! At the New Jersey Regional, hosted at the Sovereign Bank Arena in Trenton, Team 1403 won the REGIONAL ENGINEERING INSPIRATION AWARD. This award Celebrates outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team's school and community. This is the second-highest award a team can garner.

3/11/08 UPDATE!! Tomorrow, the team goes off to Newark Airport (EWR), to get on a plane and head off to the Regional event in FLORIDA! We hope to do better at this event, and come back with some more awards. Not only will we be competing, but we will also be visiting Walt Disney World! It should be a fun, AND educational experience.

3/12/08 UPDATE!! Alright! Tommorow is the NYC regional! The team will be leaving at 6:30 to head on over to the Jacob Javits Center on West 34th street. Good luck to all the teams participating! Picture: Jacob Javits Center

5/1/08 UPDATE!! WE GOT THE WEBSITE EXCELLENCE AWARD! (see sidebar) :)

Homepage

Welcome to our home of the Cougar Robotics Team 1403, a FIRST Robotics Competition team from Montgomery High School, Skillman, New Jersey. The vision of FIRST is "To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology heroes." With over 90 colleges and universities, professional associations, and corporations from the United States and Canada providing 450 individual scholarship opportunities, valued at nearly $9 million, to FIRST high school students, Cougar Robotics Team 1403 is proud be an active member.

The Robotics team was started at Montgomery High School in 2004, since then, it has expanded to the point where we have become a New Jersey host of the Kickoff Event, as well as the host of the after-season event: Monty Madness. The team also has grown with over fifty students, active parent participation, and sponsored by over four different groups, including Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), and Convatec. For more information, click our About Us link on the left hand side bar, or click here.

The team is building a new Robot and preparing to participate in the FIRST Overdrive, the 2008 game for the FIRST Robotics Competition, announced on January 5, 2008. In it, teams compete to complete counterclockwise laps around a central barrier while manipulating large 40-inch (1 meter) diameter "Trackballs" over and under overpasses to score additional points.

The Mechanical Team

The Mechanical sub-team is responsible for building the physical body and the nuts and bolts of the robot. During the six weeks of the build season, the mechanical team fabricates all the parts and assembles it to make the final FIRST Robot. Using drawings provided by the design team, the mechanical team members move to the shop, where they use precision measuring, cutting, and milling to gradually piece together what they hope will turn out to be an award winning, and highly competitive robot. Mechanical team members learn how to use a wide range of tools during the build season, including calipers and micrometers, in conjunction with the lathe and the milling machine.

During competitions, the mechanical team is responsible for keeping the robot running. Whether a chain link has broken, or in the worst case, a part has somehow fallen off the robot, the mechanical team fixes it. When time is short, members pull together like a well oiled pit crew to bring the robot back to peak performance.

The mechanical team has approximately 10 members under the captains of Kuren P. and Sam H.

The Design Team

The Design Team deals with the preliminary design of the robot each year. It in turn works with Mechanical, Electrical, and Strategy to help sketch a robot that fulfills the needed FIRST requirements. Using Autodesk Inventor, the Design Team is able to create 3D models of the robot on the computer. The Team will then assess how well the robot will perform based on this. Any design changes if required will be made right in Inventor. This helps to maximize efficiency. When it comes time to build the robot, the designs can be sent straight to the manufacturing site where they are made according to the design specifications. They also have a mock up of the robot containing all items from electrical equipment to the mechanical specs. This readies the team with a full mock up of the robot in case something needs to be replaced.

The Design Team has approximately 10 members under the captain of Xavier P.

The Electrical Team

The Electrical sub-team is responsible for providing power for the robot. During the design process, the electrical team is most concerned with weather or not the designs being presented are electrically possible. If the design is going to require too much power, the team ensures the electrical specifications are properly revised. Once the design process is complete, and understands the power requirements, the electrical board is built. Having an organized electrical board is a key to design, and will help diagnose problems without having to comb through a mess of tangled wires in order to find a problem.

The electrical team has approximately 10 members under the captain of Tim S.

The Programming Team

The Programming sub-team is the one that does all the programming needs for the season. They use "C" programming language to program the robot. Another function of the Programming team is to create side projects that would be useful for the continuing operation of the robot. This includes but is not limited to the creation of a program to mimic the game field and generate our autonomous code. It is mainly responsible for making sure the robot does what it needs to do. The programming team uses the MPLAB IDE to develop code for the robot. Another vital role of the programming team is to spread the knowledge of programming to all the new members to the team. The team teaches new members basic "C" and Java by holding weekly meetings. As well as robot related programming, for the new members to eventually be able to understand and code the robot.

The Programming team is run by the captains Sravan S. and Paul B.

The Strategy Team

The Strategy sub-team is the team that helps the team determines the best way to play the game. It is the team that has the most work during competitions. The weekend right after Kick Off (where the new game is released) the team will be rushing to let the design, mechanical, programming and other sub-teams know what the most effective way to score points. Then they work with the sub-teams to design an efficient way of achieving these goals. At competitions, the Strategy Team will "scout" other teams to find out how their robots work. Using a form that would have been developed beforehand, team members ask other teams about the different parts of their robots, how they work, how they score, along with how they have been doing. They also work closely with the Publicity Team to compile videos of matches, and to watch these matches to see how teams perform while competing.

The Strategy sub-team has 2 members under the captain of Ryan C.

The Fundraising & Administrative Team

This sub-team is in charge of both the administration and raising money to finance the team activities. The administrative duties focus mainly on making sure applications for awards and trips are filled out, and send in on time. The most time consuming activity this team works on is the preparations for the Chairman's Award. They are also in charge of creating pamphlets and information sheets that will be handed out at competitions providing judges and other FIRST teams with a detailed description of our Robots capabilities.

The fundraising responsibilities of this team are equally important. Before each season, requests are sent to different local businesses requesting funds to help the team pay for trips, robot development, and the off-season event Monty Madness that is hosted by the team each year. Along with asking corporations for funding, the sub-team also runs smaller fundraising events such as the cell phone and ink cartridge drive. After enough used ink cartridges and unwanted cell phones are collected, they are bought by a company that recycles such items.

Administration and Fundraising sub-team has approximately 16 members under the captains of Lara S. and Natalie H.

The Publicity Team

The Publicity sub-team is in charge of community outreach. In order to raise interest, this sub-team is responsible for compiling videos and pictures from building the robot thru the competition and inspires everyone with the memories they have created.

Footage of the build season is taken as well, so each step of the development of the robot could be properly documented to share their experience and lessons learned for the next year's team. The team has recently bought a custom computer with a grant from the PTSA, so the editing and compiling of video can be done right in the robotics room. When the sub-team gives presentations to organizations such as The Boy Scouts of America, the Publicity sub-team is responsible for piecing together any visual aids that will be used.

The Publicity sub-team has approximately 6 members under the captain of Patrick L.

The Animation Team

The Animation sub-team is the newest out of all of our different sub-teams. The team this year has ventured in to a new era and it planning to continue through out the years to come. This team uses the program 3D Studio Max by Autodesk to make the animation for the season. Every year FIRST has an animation challenge that they give the teams. It is usually a Safety Animation. So this year the team has made their first ever animation that gives a 3-D video with sound that has to do with keeping the Pit area clean and also where to find medical supplies and such. This team is the sub-team that works a lot with each other and depends on each other to get the work done. This sub-team really knows what team work is all about.

This sub-team has 8 members under the captains of Dylan A. and Brian C. Safety Animation 07-08 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIvT9G1yKig

The Web Team

The Web sub-team is responsible for building and maintaining this very website, a comprehensive source of information for the Montgomery Cougar Robotics Team 1403. They learned to use a variety of technologies, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), JS (JavaScript), XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language), and PHP (PHP Hypertext Preprocessor) while building the site. This team works together with the Publicity team, to consolidate photos and videos, and share them through the site. The sub-team meet weekly to keep the site updated, and constantly work to learn new technologies and find better ways to effectively distribute the information.



Currently, this sub-team is under the leadership of Rohit K.