On Saturday, December 2nd, we participated in our first scrimmage of the Centerstage Season, the Red and Green Scrimmage in Gibsonia, PA. At the event, we were selected to be part of the First Place Robot Alliance! After a day full of competition, we were able to learn from our results to make improvements in our mechanical design and code in preparation for our upcoming tournaments.
On Saturday, January 21st, we competed at the FIRST Tech Challenge South Central Pennsylvania Qualifier at Penn State York. After competing against 30 teams from across the state of Pennsylvania, we were awarded the first place Inspire Award and advancement to the Pennsylvania State Championship in March. In addition to the Inspire Award, we also received the Finalist Robot Alliance Award.
This past Sunday, February 19th, we also competed in the FIRST Tech Challenge Green and Gold Qualifier in Emmaus, Pennsylvania. After a long day of competition, we were awarded the first place Winning Alliance Robot Award, and the first place Connect Award! We are looking forward to competing in the State Championship in March!
On Friday, October 28, the robotics team visited the 910th Air Force Reserve Station located in Youngstown, Ohio. We started by touring the Additive Manufacturing facility, learning how 3D printing can be used both on and for aircraft for repairs. We then were shown the C-130 Hercules aircraft, which is used for ariel spray missions, weather reconnaissance, and airlift support. We were fortunate enough to be able to step inside the aircraft’s cargo compartment and learn about different STEM jobs within the Air Force.
Over the summer, we have been busy reaching out to our community! We hosted three summer camps where we had loads of fun teaching young students about robotics and programming with the LEGO EV3 Mindstorm and the LEGO Spike Essential Robots.
Another event we look forward to every summer is Sharon WaterFire! We were able to demonstrate our robot and work with our sister FLL teams, the Sharon Tiger Techs. At WaterFire we get to showcase our “RoboArt”.
We also had the opportunity to present in front of the Sharon Rotary Club. We partnered with the Tiger Techs yet again to showcase our robot and share updates of our season to the club. We really appreciate their support and others in our community. We are so appreciative our our Sponsors.
This summer, we visited Washington, D.C. to attend the Student Association for S.T.E.M. Advocacy (SASA) National Advocacy Convention. The main goal of this event was to speak to our members of congress about robotics, how our lives have benefited from it, and to advocate for funding. By educating the members, we hope to get more legislation signed to benefit robotics teams in our nation and to build strong relationships with the members and their staff.
We collaborated with two other Pennsylvania teams, FRC team 5740 The Trojanators and team members from the Mars Robotics Association, to speak to multiple of our member’s staff about S.T.E.M. legislation. We hope to see the effect from this convention in years to come as new and improved S.T.E.M. legislation is passed.
In January we participated virtually in the Eastern PA Qualifier tournament. We were excited to see that all of our hard work paid off when we became the top ranked team, as well as receiving the Connect Award and the second place Inspire Award! We were also finalists for the Think Award as well as the Motivate Award. In March, we are excited to be advancing to compete in the State Championship!
The Sharon High Robotics Team was featured in the Herald on Monday, under the “Expressions” section. In an article written by the media team, we shared updates about our robot and season, as well as details about the community outreach we participate in.
We were able to participate in our first in-person tournament in two years on December 18th! We were so excited to get back into real competition in Valencia, PA where we placed third out of twelve teams. 
We were able to see how our robot was able to interact during alliances with other teams, and we were able to test how well our robot completed tasks within the time limit. Using this information, we are now able to make modifications to both the robot and programming, as well as our strategy with other teams.
We have been eager to get back out into the community, and we were finally able to do so again! The team was very excited to share our knowledge and love of robotics to younger members of the community, and spark their own interest in engineering and programming. Some of the events we were able to participate in included Silly Science Sunday and WaterFire, as well as hosting an Intermediate EV3 Robotics Camp.
Team member Kayden Moroney is sharing our robot with a young member of the community
Another demonstration of our robot during WaterFire in our very own hometown.
Mechanical Update: We have built the main chassis and included our chassis motors. We are currently experimenting with our intake and altering our design based on testing. Our former team member from last year, Kyle, is coming back to assist as he is now studying mechanical engineering at Youngstown State University.
Programming Update: We have been working with our programming mentor, Mr. Ackley on our programming side. We have switched over our programming from On-Bot Java to Android Studio. We are also happy to have our second member from our team last year assisting, Lucas D’Angelo. Lucas is studying at Westminster College for computer science.
Media Update: Check out our social media at our instagram page @sharonhighrobotics, and our Facebook page @Sharon Robotics.
