2018 RoboNanza

For the first time, we attended Intuitive Surgical’s “RoboNanza” that they host for FRC teams they sponsor.



We competed in a mini “Power Up!” with the half-field Intuitive had set up for teams. This was a great opportunity to strengthen our team-sponsor relationship.



To thank Intuitive Surgical for their sponsorship, we made plaques and wrote a thank you letter that we were able to hand deliver. Through this event, we were also able to bond with other local teams. This was a great event that we can’t wait to attend again in future years!

2018 Relay for Life

RoboVikes volunteered at American Cancer Society’s annual Relay for Life fundraiser by checking in survivors and organizing goodies for the event.



Later in the day, we demoed our 2018 robot, Mjolnir, in front of our sponsor Genentech’s booth. RoboVikes along with Mjolnir drove and walked around the track along side all the survivors and their families at Relay for Life.



We had a lot of fun hearing inspiring stories from the brave cancer survivors and giving back to our community through this event.

2018 RoboPlay Day

RoboPlay Day is an competition hosted for Camp Athena students to show off the programming they learned in an environment that resembles C-STEM Day at UC Davis.



With the help of the Camp Athena teachers, we set up and judged the competition. We also demoed robots from the high school and middle school robotics programs in the district to show the students what types of robots they could work with if they continued to do robotics.

2018 Camp Athena

For the first two weeks of summer, RoboVikes mentored incoming sixth graders of Travis Unified School District. We helped teach them how to program LinkBots using Ch code.



We created challenges for the kids to complete using their LinkBots, troubleshot when the kids had errors in their code or had computer problems, and had lots of fun with the kids as they supervised them during recess.



This short summer camp was a way to get kids interested in programming and hopefully inspire them to join the robotics program that is available to them at their elementary school. Overall, both the students and the RoboVikes learned a lot that they will carry with them in future projects.

2018 Rookie Camp

Every year we host a “rookie camp” to introduce incoming RoboVikes to FRC.



We show them all the different aspects of our team and teach them how to small jobs in each of our different engineering committees so that at the end of the camp they can choose which committee they want to join for the next school year.

We also do a lot of team bonding activities to help the new RoboVikes get to know the veterans and feel more included in the team.

2018 End of Year Party

When the school year comes to an end, we have an end of the year party to celebrate. At the party we celebrate our graduating seniors with a slideshow and presents. We also thank our mentors for their countless hours of dedication to the team.



Team members also came together to surprise the seniors with gifts that they can take with them to college and remember the memories they made while being a RoboVike. These are called senior secrets and they included a baby bike for the engineering director and photo albums for the girl seniors.



Both the seniors and Mr. Green shared moments of laughter together after the slideshow They were very well decorated with chords and medals from their time on Team 701.

2018 Vanden High Exhibition

Every year, Vanden High hosts an “Exhibition Night” to show off all the hard work engineering, english, government, business, video production, and history students have accomplished all year.



The RoboVikes attended this event to show off our robot to our school and to draw new members into our team. Many of us were also there to present projects we created in engineering courses, such as custom stools and bridges.



Many of our peers were surprised and impressed with the amount of work and time that went into building the robot and our entire program. Overall, the exhibition was a rewarding experience, as it gave us a chance to finally show our friends and teachers what we were working on all year.

2018 Fiesta Days

For the second time, we worked with two local teams, the RoboKnights and the RoboDogs, to build and show off a robotics-inspired float for our town’s annual Fiesta Days’ Parade.



Throughout the parade, we were chanting and cheering to show our community our team spirit and our enthusiasm for FIRST robotics. We also got to talk to a few different local organizations that sponsor our team. It is always a pleasure to thank them for their generosity to Team 701!



After the parade, all three teams went to Vaca High for a BBQ lunch to further strengthen the bonds with the robotics teams in our area. It was a fun filled day of community, sponsor and team relationships that are so essential to the  RoboVikes!

2018 Genentech Day

The past 5 years the RoboVikes have gone to Genentech for their Bring Your Son or Daughter to Work Day. We were invited to this event by Genentech to spread STEM and FIRST ideas to local youth whose parents work in the industry.



This event was also a great way to show Genentech, one of the team’s major sponsors, all the hard work that we’ve put in to our robot this season and to thank them for supporting Vanden Robotics. At Genentech, we demonstrated our FIRST Power Up robot to attendees and brough clawbots for kids to learn how to drive.




We were also given a tour of Genentech’s facility and the opportunity to learn more about the biotechnology field as a possible future career option. Overall, this event was a great learning opportunity for both the RoboVikes who attended and the kids and parents who wanted to learn more about FIRST robotics.