As the 2008 FRC Build season comes to a close we look back on the events that have made this season one of the best yet. To start at the kickoff though would diminish the preseason work that laid the groundwork for this season, in fact we must start much farther back, last year in fact, to see the strides the team has made.

Last season was trying for the team as they lost their lead advisor, primary sponsor, and partner school in an unexpected twist of fate. Rather than lose hope at so many unfortunate events the team found a new advisor and bounced back. With the build season quickly approaching and in fact slipping past, the race was on to find a new location to build. Pressure Tube Manufacturing(PTM) came to the rescue, providing space in their plant for the team to build. The team put forth extensive effort to raise funds for the build. So with new mentors and new sponsors the team went on to have a successful season.

Fast forward to this season and the team has moved to a larger construction space at PTM and begun a training program for team members. The program introduced them to a number of different parts of the team and included presentations from both mentors and senior team members. The it's goal was to give everyone on the team a better understanding of how individual parts of the team operated and show new members what they could get involved with. In addition to running an orientation the subteams each started their own projects to both give the new members some experience and to prepare the subteams for their projects during the regular season. Projects included the animation team producing a safety animation and the website team beginning work on a new design for the site.

Fund raising and Volunteering were two other major activities that started in the preseason. In both of these areas the team worked hard and with a passion. In few months they managed to raise enough for entry fees, robot construction, a new milling machine and some savings for travel. On the volunteering end they started working in number of areas in the community.

The season began with a flurry of meetings. The game rules were poured over and issues and questions were brought to light about game play and robot construction. Soon though play strategies and robot designs were being presented and discussed and within a week the robot began to take a conceptual form. From there the season progressed smoothly with an innovative drive train and robot design taking a good portion of the time. The coding team had their hands full building an interface, but they took on the challenge with determination.

Now the team is pulling all of the pieces together into a final robot to be tested and tweaked before being shipped off to competition. They are looking forward to an exciting round of competitions and finally nationals in April. So for a team that nearly met with disaster the future is looking brighter than ever. -David Archibald [RPI '10, BS EE/CSE]