April Newsletter

April was a very exciting month for FIRST Robotics Competition team 525, the Swartdogs.  After qualifying for the Championships in Detroit, we needed to raise money for the trip.  This led to fundraisers throughout the month. 

The first fundraiser was through one of our local elementary schools: Orchard Hill Elementary.  In less than one week, they organized and collected 19,600 pop cans, totalling $980!  At the end of the week, we visited their school for a whole school assembly where we demonstrated our robot and thanked the students for their hard work and donation.  We also presented the class who collected the most cans with a small prize.

On April 7th, we worked at the Trekman Fool’s Run.  This was a 5K event where we helped in any way possible including: parking, handing out food, tearing down, guiding runners, starting line, and hosting the results kiosk. It was freezing cold, but we still worked hard!

Later that day, we collected even more pop cans by walking around neighborhoods. Throughout the month people also dropped cans off at our buildsite as donations.  Thank you to everyone who donated pop cans to our team!

We ended the month with the Championships in Detroit and they were a blast!  We arrived in Detroit on midday Wednesday.  We spent the afternoon making adjustments to our robot, going to the Innovation Fair, and seeing the other FIRST programs.  That evening, we participated in a practice match.  On Thursday and Friday, we participated in qualification matches and used our new scouting app.  Throughout Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, we attended various workshops ranging in topics from programming to student leadership to technical skills to awards application.  We were able to learn a lot through these workshops.  As for our qualification matches, at the end of the qualifications we were ranked number 45th with a 4-6 record.  During alliance selections, we were the 2nd pick of the 2nd alliance.  Our alliance consisted of the alliance captains 3641 The Flying Toasters, along with 3098 The Captains, and 4618 Newman Robotics.  While we did not win the first quarter finals match, our alliance came back to win the next two.  Sadly, our alliance lost both of the semifinals matches, but overall we had a very fun and exciting weekend.

The school year was coming to a close, and we were super excited for new season, DESTINATION: DEEP SPACE!