The Week 5 update for Spruce Mountain Area Robotics Team 3930 (SMART) was written by Rylee Delaney & Sydney Shaffer     

The Spruce Mountain Area Robotics Team approaches the final days of build season, bringing together the work that the build, programming, and electrical teams have been working on for the past six weeks.

On February 15th, we realized we would once again have the problem of an over-weight robot. To combat this issue, we had to get creative and determine where we could afford to loose the weight. After greatly reducing the amount of raw material on the robot by “Swiss cheesing” (drilling holes) we can now begin to fit together the different components of our robot, mounting them to our drive base.

Along with the work that has been done on the robot, the Chairman’s team has been hard at work putting together a presentation to be judged at the events we will be attending. The Spirit team has been mass producing buttons and tu-tu’s, and making costumes to defend our title as being one of the most noticeable and enthusiastic teams at any competition we compete at. 

On Sunday, February 25th, we hope to be able to go to Falmouth to get our robot pre-inspected, just to be 100 percent sure that it complies with the long list of rules that FIRST Robotics has set for all teams. While there, we also plan to utilize their full-size practice field so our drive team can gain experience with maneuvering the robot through the components of the game field.

The following weekend we will be competing at the Granite State competition in Windham, New Hampshire.

On March 23rd and 24th, we will be attending the Pine Tree competition at the Lewiston Colisée, and we hope to see you there!