FARMINGTON — For most students, school is out for the summer. Not so for Blue Crew FIRST Robotics Team 6153 from Mt. Blue High School/Foster Career and Technical Education Center.

The team is busy preparing for the next competition season by taking part in offseason meets and fundraising at local events. The season begins officially in January 2022.

On Sunday, Aug. 1, the team attended the BattleCry at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, an offseason event in Worcester, Massachusetts.

“This was the first time since March of 2020 that we had the opportunity to compete in an event,” member Emily Hammond said in a recent email. “After a year of remote challenges, it was so exciting to finally interact with other teams from all around New England. Despite how small the event was, the energy was incredible. You could feel the love and enthusiasm for the FIRST program from every team.”

Blue Crew finished tenth in qualifications out of the twenty-four teams and were picked to join the fifth seed alliance for playoffs.

“There were six alliances in total and each was strong competition for us and our alliance partners 694 (StuyPulse) of New York City, 8544 (Reinforcement) from Sutton, MA, and 5000 (Hammerheads) of Hingham, MA,” Hammond wrote. “In the round-robin playoffs, our alliance won three out of our five matches and moved onto the finals along with the first seed alliance. I remember cheering with our alliance partners when we found out.

“We hardly knew each other, but the connection was there,” she continued. “In the end, we lost by a narrow margin but proudly brought home a finalist trophy. It really was an underdog story. In the majority of these events, the finals consist of the first and second seed alliances. For our low-ranked alliance to make it as far as we did was incredible. It was a very long and exhausting day, but we wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

There was so much to learn at the event, Hammond noted. With the reduced number of students allowed, it was the first time she was deeply involved in strategizing before each and every match.

“Since it was an offseason event, we were able to try new things without the pressure that the regular season brings,” she added.

Hammond’s brother joined the robotics program a couple of years before she entered high school.

“In 2017, I attended a FIRST Steamworks event in Massachusetts,” she wrote. “It was so incredible to watch the robots compete and see how so many teams came up with entirely different ways to solve the same problems. I was hooked at the very first event, and I’ve been involved in the Blue Crew Robotics team ever since.”

Jack Cramer got involved in the robotics program after the robotics team took the robot to the middle school to show eighth grade students what robotics is about.

“I’ve always been interested in robotics, so when I learned there was a high school team that builds robots, I had to join,” he wrote in a recent email. “Battle Cry was the first robotics competition I’ve attended, so I got to learn how events work and what needs to be done to prepare for events.

“Not only was it the first competition I’ve attended it’s also the first competition I’ve driven the robot in,” Cramer noted. “Driving the robot in competition is very different from driving in the high school hallways, so I got to learn what it’s like to drive the robot in competition.”

Finnegan Zimmerschied attended the eighth grade demonstration and was encouraged by a friend to join. At the meet Sunday he gained more tools on how to effectively communicate with his fellow teammates.

For Chandler Pike, robotics is a family affair. He got involved with Blue Crew in eighth grade year while attending Spruce Mountain Middle School in Jay.

“My older sister was on Blue Crew, and my dad was their mentor,” he wrote. “I was the leader of the state championship LEGO League team from Spruce so I already enjoyed robotics. Blue Crew had an incredible team environment, and I had direct connections within the team. I started attending events with them. For my freshman year I transferred to Mt. Blue and spent a year with the team before I went to Maine School of Science and Mathematics.”

Pike is still part of Blue Crew during summer and school breaks.

“While I have seen many robotics competitions and alliance selections, the way our alliance rallied against better alliances to win matches and make it to finals was eye opening for me,” Pike wrote of the recent competition. “I was concerned with the alliance’s chances in eliminations because we were the fifth alliance and I knew it was an uphill climb to succeed. The way we all rallied together to make it to finals was really amazing.”

The most challenging thing about robotics for Cramer is learning everything.

“I’m trying to help out the team the best I can by trying to learn a little bit of everything, so I can take the work load off people who need it,” he wrote.

“For me the most challenging thing about robotics is pushing myself out of my comfort zone and trying new things,” Zimmerschied wrote. “And the thing I enjoy most about robotics is the atmosphere and the people.”

The most challenging for Pike in robotics is fully understanding what every robot is doing during a match.

“I was the team’s drive coach during the event where I had to do this task every match,” he noted. “I always work to improve this skill, and it is what all my preparation before competitions goes into. I never want to have an unknown factor in a match.”

The most challenging for Hammond is the massive amount of information that comes with being involved with the program.

“You need the knowledge to design, build, wire, and program the robot, but that’s not all that you need to do,” she wrote. “A huge portion of the program is raising money to build a robot each year, budgeting, having a deep understanding of the rules and requirements for each new game, commercial arts, and general organization to get the team to events.

“It’s nearly impossible for a few people to do everything alone,” Hammond continued. “That’s why we have a whole team. The amount of knowledge that the program presents can be a little overwhelming, but we are so lucky to have such amazing resources (mentors especially) to guide us in the right direction.”

The robotics program has so much to offer, she added.

“The skills that you gain as part of the team can be used throughout your life,” Hammond wrote. “Several of our alumni have talked about how easy college was because of everything that they had learned.

“What I enjoy most is how open the program is,” she continued. “You could come to a meeting your first day without a clue on how to even begin to build a robot, and by the end of the season, you would be elbow-deep in the process. There’s nothing more exhilarating than watching a robot you helped build compete in events.”

The thing Cramer enjoys most about robotics is learning new skills that will help him have a successful career.

“I also enjoy making new friends and meeting people from other robotic teams,” he noted. “Also it feels great to bring home a trophy on the first competition I drove for.”

Pike enjoys the team’s atmosphere and the ability to do as much as he wants because of the team’s smaller nature.

“Everyone on the team had a major role, and we all can get the enjoyment of doing a lot for the team,” he noted.

None of this would have been possible without the support of the team’s amazing mentors Richard Wilde, Joel Pike, Cam and Kathy Hammond, Joseph and Leah O’Brien, and Adam Zimmerschied, Emily Hammond noted. She also highlighted the importance of sponsors Pratt & Whitney, the Robotics Institute of Maine, the Rotary Club of Farmington, the Bjorn Family, Walmart, Franklin Savings Bank, TRC, Midstate Machine, the Maine Masons, Preti Flaherty, Rather Be Wheeling ATV Repair, Portland Glass and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration grant that are helping to pay for their season.

The team also devotes much time to fundraising to cover additional expenses.

Team members and advisor Richard Wilde were in Farmington Saturday afternoon, July 31, where root beer floats and other cool treats were sold at Meetinghouse Park during Summer Fest. The team’s mascot R2Blue2 was there along with competition robot Juggernaut, Rubik’s Cube solving robot Robbie, and hydration robot R2 Jr. Some of the robots are built using a 3-D printer.

The team was at Kineowatha Park in Wilton Saturday, Aug. 7, during the Wilton Blueberry Fest.

For more information about Blue Crew, visit the team’s website http://bluecrew6153.org/ or their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/FRC6153.

 

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