2017 Preseason Newsletter
Chezy Champs!
In late September, the Casti gatorbotics team competed in the 4th annual Chezy Champs tournament. 42 other teams from the West Coast came to Bellarmine school for this pre-season competition.
Gatorbotics did very well. In the first part of the competition, we ended up in 6th place. We were selected as captains, and chose Paly and Valley Christian as our alliance. Although we lost in the quarterfinals 1-2, it was a success for a first performance. Riona and Vanessa drove the robot for the first time, and they did really well!
At the end of the first night, the chain of the robot was impaired, but the leads and coaches worked to fix it so it was ready for the next day. On the second day, Reese pulled together all of the data that helped us choose our alliance. The competition went smoothly, and the leads and coaches got to work together which was good practice before the season.
Thank you so much to Riona, Vanessa, and Reese who performed against some of the best teams in the world, and thank you to our coaches, Hal and Victoria who were with us for the whole weekend!
Fall Workshops!
Castilleja’s Gatorbotics team provides a series of workshops during the Fall preseason in order to prepare team members for the rigorous competition season in the Spring. These workshops are required for both the Build and Programming subteams, and each team member follows a workshop track that is specific for their subteam. Both new and returning members attend these workshops, which cover topics such as Safety and Inventory, Java, and Intro to CAD in order to gain skills that will be helpful during the competition season.
Ria Sonecha, who is co-leading the build subteam, says, “Our goal for workshops is to give every member a solid foundation in the technical skill they'll need when the build season starts in January.” She continues to add, “We hope that this helps everyone feel like they are able to contribute to all aspects of building the robot from strategy and design to CAD, fabrication, and programming.”
Ria’s goal as a team lead is to prepare the members of the build team with the skills that they will need when the competition season begins. She works to create and run the workshops, making sure to cover all the skills necessary to prepare the Build team’s members. Many new members find this guidance helpful, as they are required to take introductory courses that cover basic skills needed to be successful in creating the robots. Gatorbotics’s mentors also play a huge role in this process, and can use their knowledge to make Gatorbotics’s workshops worthwhile and successful.
Overall, the workshops have received positive feedback, and are helpful in providing team members with skills necessary to be successful during the competition season.
Meet the Leads!
Arushi Gupta, Team Captain
Arushi is a senior who has been on the Gatorbotics team for all four years of high school. She has had a variety of positions and is very excited for the coming season. As as freshman, she joined the robotics team because she was interested in using power tools. She continued on the team because she learned so much in her first year and was able to try out so many new things.
This season, she hopes to excite new team members, “In the past, newer members of the team have sometimes been bored, so I want to do a better job of including all members of the team during the season.” She would also like to improve the team’s time management during the season for as much practice time as possible.
Her goals for the season are to “build an amazing robot without compromising our student-driven team culture.” She hopes to achieve that with the use of team workshops, especially focused on CAD. She is most excited to form bonds with the new members and spend lots of fun times with the team.
Rashi Bose, Financial & Inventory Lead
Rashi Bose has been a member of Gatorbotics since she was a freshman, making this her fourth year in the program. She has been an integral part of the team, serving in the build, programming and entrepreneurship sections. This year, as a senior, she will serve as the inventory and finance lead. This position is a new addition which was put in place this year. Rashi will serve as a liaison between the entrepreneurship and build team. Her job includes making sure the team stays on budget and has all the necessary materials. She will ensure that the team has enough financial support to go to competitions, keep inventory, and inform the team on what needs to be bought and what resources can be reused.
Having been on the team for three years, Gatorbotics has been a large part of Rashi’s high school experience. This year she hopes to be a leader and connect the two groups, build and entrepreneurship. Rashi will work to close the gap between the two teams and try to make sure that the members of the entrepreneurship team are informed about the build team, and vice versa. This season, she is very excited to get started with the build season. Rashi loves the late night fun in the lab. She also is looking forward to going to competitions to see the robot in action and meet members of other teams. Rashi’s favorite memory from last season was during their first competition. Looking back, she remembers how amazing the energy was. The whole team was ecstatic and had incredible spirit. Through her past three years on the team, Gatorbotics has also taught Rashi about resilience. She remembers all the failed prototypes and how they taught her to move on and try a new direction. She is also grateful to Gatorbotics for teaching her how to use the complex power tools. Rashi says being exposed to such interesting machines is a privilege.
Not only is Rashi a important member of the Gatorbotics team, but she is also a skilled bollywood dancer and plays tennis in her free time. We are so lucky to have Rashi as a member of the team, as she is extremely skilled in her work, but also supports the rest of her group with her kindness and is committed to the success of the program.
Rekha Ramanathan, Entrepreneurship Lead
Rekha first joined Gatorbotics because when she was a ninth grader at the Clubs Fair, the Gatorbotics team was giving out free t-shirts. She wanted a t-shirt so she joined the club, and she says today that it was one of the best choices she ever made. Gatorbotics has been a creative outlet and fun way to connect with girls from other grades. Her favorite part of Gatorbotics is spending time in the lab with her teammates. She appreciates knowing that her teammates always have her back and are as committed to building a successful robot as she is.
Rekha also feels she has benefitted from her experience in robotics, “I am also so appreciative of all the new skills I've been able to learn through Gatorbotics, from using power tools to design thinking to CAD to technical writing.”
She recounts that her favorite memory from a past Gatorbotics season was seeing Team 1700 appear first on the scoreboard during Chezy Champs only one month ago in September. Rekha says, “Airgon was our best robot to date and it was so satisfying to see all our hard work pay off!”
Outside of the Gatorbotics season, Rekha writes for Counterpoint is a member of the Castilleja Track and Field team, and participates in the Halford’s Young Women Leaders’ program.
Rekha also feels that Gatorbotics has influenced her in a positive way, as she has gained many technical and leadership skills, confidence to pursue STEM, made many close friends through the club, and received valuable mentorship from adults and team members.
Vanessa Woo, Programming Lead
Vanessa Woo has been a key member of the Gatorbotics team ever since she joined in her freshman year. She first joined the team because she was interested in CS and engineering and thought that it would be a good intro to the relationship between hardware and software. Vanessa decided to stay on the team throughout high school because she found Gatorbotics to be fun and rewarding.
As the programming and electronics lead, Vanessa’s job is to program the robot and organize its electronics. She also has to teach the new members what to do and delegate tasks to them so that the robot is finished in time. You definitely won’t regret spending time with someone as funny and honest as Vanessa.
This season, Vanessa is looking forward to making an amazing robot with vision and an advanced autonomous mode that can complete even the most complex task set by the FRC (First Robotics Competition). She says, “Our team has only improved through the years and I want to see us winning a regional.” She thinks that this year will be our best year yet, and she is super excited to work with all the new Gatorbotics team members -- old and new!
Ria Sonecha, Build Lead
Ria Sonecha is one of this year’s two Gatorbotics Build leads. She is entering her fourth year of Gatorbotics and she is eager for the new season to begin; more specifically, she is looking forward to “getting to know new members, and implementing CAD to build a better robot.”
Last season, Ria loved “watching [our robot] climb” and she remembers being “excited to see that [mechanism] work.” She loves the Build team as “it’s very hands-on and it’s very rewarding to watch models become real.”
This season, she and Riona, the other Build lead, are making some changes to the way the build team works. According to Ria, this year will include an “increased focus on CAD,” as Gatorbotics has just switched from using OnShape to Solidworks, a more professional CADding service. One change that they are embracing from last season is the increased workshop requirement; it worked out well.
Ria anticipates challenges for the upcoming season due to the condensed build season. “We only have 4 weeks with the robot, so we have to be really efficient and stick with deadlines,” she said. This season she hopes to get the whole team invested in building the robot. She wants each and every member of the team to “be able to say ‘this is my robot,’” and she wants everyone to have the “skills to contribute.” With Ria’s help, this season is off to a great start!
