Intuitive Surgical RoboNanza

A group from our team went to Intuitive Surgical down in Sunnyvale for their RoboNanza. We were expecting a 2015 Recycle Rush field, but IS jazzed up the goals of the game by putting in obstacles...and using tables as protection instead of 10 ft tall plastic. We only had one person from this past season's drive team that went, who was our co-driver, Fish. He decided that since this wasn't an actual competition and really just an "exhibition," anyone could drive the robot. We had 4 different drivers and 3 different co-drivers. We all got a feel of driving the robot in some way.

Fish teaching Gabby the co-driver controls.

Rookie Camp, Day 1

We had almost 20 rookies show up for Rookie Camp at school. We talked about what FIRST is, the game for this past season, matches from the FIRST World Championship, and our 2015 robot Heimdall, along with the reveal video. We did the Human Knot with the rookies, played around with water balloons (a few may have gotten completely soaked), and played dodgeball. Day 1 was a fun, loving, bonding time at Vanden High School.

Programming in Summer

Today, we had our first programming session of the summer. We had about 20 students, rookies and veterans, that showed up for today's class. Everyone received vandenrobotics.com Google accounts. Some alumni from this past school year returned as mentors.