Though we started the 2009-2010 season with only five students, we’ve since grown into a vibrant club with over 40 members. Right after the 2009 season our team underwent momentous changes, including reorganization of the leadership team, as well as changes in how the public relations and programming team was run. For the off-season project, the team decided to build a simple second robot for the programming team to work on, as well as modify the “Om-bot” to make it presentable. We also started a Support-Group mostly run by parents in order to help with the organization of carpooling as well as food and chaperoning. In the beginning of the year, the VEX team won at the VEX Jumpstart Competition and qualified to go to the Worlds competition in Dallas, Texas.
During build season, the team decided to try a new process for designing the robot, in which the team was split into four sub-teams and each team came up with different ideas for a robot. Through this process, the team was able to come up with many diverse robot designs. Once the team decided on a design, drawing and CAD drawings were made. The team split into the previously determined subteams and started working in parallel on the robot. The final robot uses mecanum wheels, has a powerful kicker, and an arm to lift the robot onto a pullup bar.