Our History
2009| 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | Team_424 |
2009 Season
In 2009 Greater Rochester Robotics gained a lot of experience. Now in our third year with two teams, we had perfected team organization and expectations were at an all time high. 424, the JV team, picked a strategy early and proceeded to build a highly capable robot. 340 spent the better part of 3 weeks deciding on a strategy and prototyping our ideas. Once a strategy was chosen integration was put to the test with a fairly complex robot.
At the Finger Lakes Regional, 424 entered the elimination rounds as the 4th seed alliance and selected 1126 and 2228 as our partners. After 3 straight losses to start the competition team 340 rebounded and found ourselves as the 7th seed alliance entering eliminations. 340 teamed up with 1511, and 316 to form a well rounded alliance. 424 was knocked out in 3 matches in part to an unfortunate robot failure by one of our alliance partners. 340 fought through eliminations to find ourselves up against an excellent trio of robots and was eliminated in two matches in the regional finals. Team 340 was awarded the Finger Lakes Regional Chairman’s award for our continued hard work and efforts in the community.
Team 340 then went onto the Championship event where we redesigned out robot from a shooter into a dumper. While on field robot performance was significantly better, so was the competition. We finished the competition with more wins than losses but we were left out of the elimination round and the awards ceremony. This did not put a dampener on an already great year and we are charged up for a great 2009-2010.
2008 Season
With the whole system of two teams working together down, 340 and 424 set out quickly in the 2008 Competition, FIRST Overdrive. Immediately after Kickoff, both teams went to deciphering the rules and formulating a game strategy. Throughout the build season both teams worked closely with our mentors to create their robots. As the Regional Approached, both teams contributed to each other to help each other do better. At Finger Lakes Regional, both teams were plagued by problems during the practice matches, and a few qualification matches. Still both teams were able to get a system down and moved on each round. Team 340 was able to make it to the quarterfinals, but were stopped there. While the robot did no go as far as desired, 340 still managed to win the Regional Chairman's Award, from all the hard work put in by the team. In Atlanta, Team 340 was unable to make it past qualification, but the time spent together in the two teams help bond the team, preparing them for 2009.
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2007 Season
Because Team 340 was growing so rapidly, the newer kids weren’t able to participate in the actual building of the robot because there were just too many students. GRR decided that it would be better if Churchville-ChiliHigh School hosted 2 teams. Thus, 2007 was the first year for Team 424, GRR2. All first year students participated as members of Team 424, working side-by-side with the veteran team. Although Team 340 had to give up some of its best mentors and working space, the set-up was a success, and both groups were able to focus more on their own robot and team bonding. The “sister teams” were also able to use each other as both a support center and available competitor, and one of their scrimmages appeared on the early portion of 13 WHAM news.
After countless hours of hard work and dedication, we attended the Finger Lakes regional event. Friday’s evening ceremonies presented us with the Website Award. The rounds on Saturday led us to be selected by the 8th alliance, and we made it all the way to the finals, taking home the silver medal. A year’s work of community service, demonstrations and other innovative ways to spread the joy of FIRST landed us the Engineering and Inspiration Award.
Although we didn’t take home any awards in Atlanta, Team 424 came to support 340’s robot, and the team members became closer as we spent the weekend together.
Team 340 members couldn’t wait for many of 424’s students to move up to join the veteran team, and looked forward to meeting the new batch of rookies ready for 424.
The 2006 season brought more challenges and more opportunities for growth. We quickly jumped into the game and began planning out our strategy. The question we faced was, to build a shooter or a low goal scorer. We decided to build a shooter and proceeded to prototype and build a competitive robot.
The robot worked well and we were selected by the 6th seed alliance 1559
Devil Tech and 1405 The Finny Falcons. We helped our alliance make it to the semi-finals, only one win short of the competition finals.
Once again our team success surpassed our robot success. On Friday of the FLR we were given the Website award and we were all very happy for Gary our webmaster. Our team leader Jason Rees was also awarded the Woodie Flowers Award for the outstanding Mentor at the regional. On Saturday we were presented with the Chairman’s Award for the second straight year.
This year we once again focused our efforts on helping our community and advance FIRST. With the help of our sponsor, Bausch & Lomb, we promoted FIRST Lego League and FIRST Robotics. We continued to help local teams by holding a welding training class for seven local teams. We continued mentoring local teams and helped 1405, 1511, 1551, 1559, and 1567 with parts and welding.
This year we advanced our FLL efforts by branching out to local schools with student mentoring. We continued helping our Junior High School team with fundraising and mentoring. We also began working with the DestinySchool for the Gifted and Talented in Brighton, a partnership we hope to continue for years to come.
The year 2005 was a challenging, learning experience for Team 340. As we began to build the competing robot, we came to the realization that the task was not as easy as we had thought. The team learned the hard way that we cannot do everything and that procrastination combined with trying to excel in all aspects of the game does not pay off.
Needless to say, our robot did not do as well as we had planned in the Finger Lakes Regional competition. However, we were chosen for the top alliance with the ThunderChickens, Team 217 and SIE H2O BOTS, Team 237 for our excellent defensive tactics. Unfortunately, our alliance did not make to the finals and was eliminated in the second round.
Although our robot did not perform up to our standards on the playing field, the team itself performed excellently off of it. We were able to leave the regional with the most prestigious award of FIRST Robotics, the Chairman’s Award. Our team was extremely happy with this especially because we were now eligible to receive the award in the National competition as well.
During the 2005 season, we were given the opportunity to mentor several teams. The Finney Falcons (1405) is one team that we have mentored for two years now. Through the process of mentoring they have not only been successful, but we have now formed what we think will be a long lasting friendship with their team. We mentored two other teams throughout the 2005 season as well.
FIRST Lego League (FLL) was a major project in 2005. We started and mentored a Lego League team at our districts Junior High School throughout the season. We even managed to get a small exhibition together to compete at the Finger Lakes Regional. We were able to get five teams to take part in the side competition. The small exhibition was a prelude to the 2006 FLL full competition held at University of Rochester.
2005 taught our team some important lessons; the most valuable being that a season can be a success even if your robot does not compete to your expectations. Our Chairman’s Award was a very proud moment of our team’s seven-year history. We are now further broadening our efforts to live up to the expectations that came with the award.
Change is the best word to describe the 2004 season. We started the season without a sponsor and with little hope of finding a major sponsor. As a team we began an intensive marketing campaign to raise money for the team. We found small sponsors, applied for a donation from a foundation, and worked to obtain materials from local companies. After all of this we had raised about $10,000.
A simple act of gracious professionalism at the Buckeye Regional the previous spring connected us to our current sponsors. Two of our team members noticed some individuals wandering around looking for a place to eat at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Our team members offered them their seats and stayed to talk with them. It just happened that those individuals were executives from the Bausch & Lomb team. They offered our team members their card and told them to have the team coordinators call them. That contact was made in the fall and Bausch & Lomb agreed to sponsor Greater Rochester Robotics.
With new sponsorship in place, the team could get down to the business of building a robot and competing. The team came up with an innovative and complex design. As we continued to design and build our robot, we felt we had a good chance of doing well at competition.
At the Buckeye Regional we were undefeated through two days of competition and again found ourselves atop the leader board. We selected two teammates we felt complimented us and could help us win the competition. We did just that. We never lost a match throughout the elimination rounds to finish undefeated in competition. We were also judged to have the best team Animation and again won the Motorola Quality Award for a robust and reliable design.
Feeling good about our success in Cleveland, we returned to the Championship Event. Through another two days of competition, we were once again buried in a group of very good teams. Luckily, both of the teams we partnered with in Cleveland were atop the leader board in our division. We were the second selection made by the number one seed team, our partners from Cleveland. As a trio we went on to win our division and missed the Finals by one match. Altogether our most successful season to date.
In 2003 even more change was brought to Greater Rochester Robotics. Our partnership with Nortel Networks was at an end. We had only a few thousand dollars in the club account and no new prospect for a team sponsor. We could no longer work at the Nortel Networks facilities and only retained a couple mentors from Nortel. On the bright side our school had just built a brand new Math, Science, and Technology wing where we could work. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to bring the team home and work out of our own school.
We were now in our fourth year and had a number of fourth year seniors who wanted to graduate winners. Faced with little money and no prospects for more we decided to attend two regional events and forego the Championship Event. This year it would be the Buckeye Regional and a return to New Jersey.
At the Buckeye Regional we would make our greatest contacts and have our most disappointing finish to date. After two days of competition we were helplessly buried in the middle of a very good pack and we had not sold ourselves as well as we should have. Because of this we were not picked for the elimination round for the first time in team history. We also went home with a single award.
We knew we had to make some changes before we were to go to Rutgers or our fate could be the same. We made some simple changes to our robot design that we felt would help our robot work more efficiently and be more recognizable. We removed the unreliable bin stacking mechanism and replaced it with a large blocker sign. Our efforts paid off, the judges felt our robot was worthy of the Motorola Quality Award for the robust and durable design. We were also selected by the number one seed, Team 25, to participate in the elimination rounds. This partnership proved to be unstoppable as we went on to win the J&J Regional.
2003 ended in bitter sweet success. We proved that we had a great robot, good enough to compete with the best in the country. Unfortunately, we had no sponsor and no money so that is where our season ended.
In 2002 change was brought to Greater Rochester Robotics. We again had high expectations for our team and our robot. We were beginning to grow out of the machining capabilities available at the Nortel Networks facilities so we teamed up with Precision Weld to help us. Their facility was much better equipped but smaller and was only able to accommodate a small number of students and mentors at one time. We were a team split between two places. Part of the team worked in one location while the rest worked in another. Still we managed to put together our most technological robot yet. With the help of some now team less RIT students and mentors, we put together our most automated robot to date. With many functions automated it would make the work of the driver that much easier.
This year we attended the New York City Regional. On Friday we were awarded the Delphi Driving Technology Award and felt we had a good chance to win the competition. We again went on to perform very well during the 2 days of competition and found ourselves in second going into the elimination rounds. There we made our selections and again were knocked out in the first round of eliminations.
We again decided that we could do better and went on to the Championship Event looking for more success. With a few modifications made to the robot we felt we had a very good chance to improve our performance from NYC. We again were selected for the elimination rounds by team 329, another Nortel Networks team. There we went on to knock off the number one seed, and now were faced with a very tough TechnoKats alliance. They went on to beat us in three very close matches and we went home empty handed, but not discouraged.
In 2001, we stared out right where we left off in 2000. The game was announced and we were off to a great start. We decided there were 2 ways we could play the game and wanted to build both robots, so we did.
We again had a large team with over 30 student members and 15 mentors and teachers. Because of this we set the team into 2 designs to be built on the same base platform. A modular robot seemed like a great idea. We could change our robot based on the teams we were partnered with. This would also be the first year our team attempted a web-page and animation.
This year we decided to attend the Long Island Regional Competition. After two days of competition we found ourselves at the top of the list and picking first for the elimination rounds. We selected 4 excellent teammates and felt we had a great chance at winning the competition. Unfortunately we lost traction in the first round and was knocked out.
We still went home with the Imagery Award for a well matched theme and robot. We also won the #1 Seed award which only made us believe we could do better. We again decided to attend the National Championship at EpcotCenter. There we went on to be selected by team 177 the bobcats. We teamed up with 177, 59, 122, & 53. Our alliance went on to win the Galileo Division.
In the fall of 1999 Greater Rochester Robotics, GRR, was formed by an alliance between Nortel Networks and Churchville-ChiliHigh School. The team was open to any Churchville-Chili student in grades 9-12 and any child of a Nortel Networks employee. Because of this, we had 35 team members from 5 different schools in the Greater Rochester area. Led by 2 teachers, a handful of engineers from Nortel Networks, a few parents, and other Churchville-Chili residents, we all learned how to build a robot together.
That year we attended our first ever FIRST Regional event at RutgersUniversity. GRR was awarded the Rookie All-Star award on Friday and on Saturday was picked by team 303 to play in the elimination rounds. There we went on to play to the Final Round and was awarded with the Finalist Trophies and Medals.
Due to our success in New Jersey we decided to attend the National Championship in Orlando, Florida at EpcotCenter. We again competed in 2 days of competition and were picked last for the elimination round by Team 22, where we were unfortunately knocked out in the first round.
Despite our loss at the National Championship we were hooked and decided to continue on for the next year. We knew bigger and better things were to come.
Until the 2010 FRC Competition, Greater Rochester Robotics’ has had a second competition team. Due to budget cuts, Team 424 is no longer in existence. Team 424, was made up of rookies and some veteran members of G.R.R. and served as the perfect training ground for those less experienced. Team 424 allowed a hands-on experience for beginning members of G.R.R. It was essentially served as the Junior Varsity team as they were slightly less experienced, but still worked with Team 340 to improve themselves. The only difference between a Junior Varsity and Varsity robotics team, versus a sports team, it meant that we sometimes played against each other. Our twenty plus mentors were able to split up between the two teams without dampening the assistance that each team would receive because we worked very close to one another and were always willing to share ideas and time.
