- Niagara College Newsletter
Niagara College Event
March 2025
Quickstrike Niagara
Team 6978
Thank you for all your support of our team! Without your sponsorship, this build season would not be possible. Here is what we have been working on over the past week.
Preparations
In the week leading up to our competition at Niagara College, our coding team made significant progress in programming the robot, while the drive team rigorously practiced using the newly refined code. Meanwhile, other team members created a detailed scouting template, which was later utilized during the competition. They also sharpened their scouting skills by analyzing matches from events around the world.
Day 3
On the third day, our driving and strategic execution improved significantly, cutting our coral cycle time, the time needed to place a coral on the reef in half. This enhancement boosted our efficiency and scoring potential. As a result, we were selected for the sixth alliance, with our scouting data playing a key role in helping our alliance captain choose the third team. Ultimately, we finished 11th overall and collaborated effectively with our alliance partners. As it stands right now, we are currently 50th out of 130 teams in Ontario, the top 100 teams will be invited to participate at Provincials in April.
Day 1 & 2
On the first day, our drive team worked alongside other teams on the field to enhance their driving skills, while the coding team persisted in refining the robot despite facing challenges. Team members also interacted with visiting scouts, exchanging insights and learning about competing robots. These efforts led to significant improvements in the drive team’s accuracy, handling, and speed. On the second day, non-drive team members concentrated on scouting matches, collecting crucial data on competitors. This information became invaluable on the third day, assisting our alliance captain in selecting our third team alliance partner.
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- 2025 February Update 2
February Update 2
Week 7 • February 2025
Quickstrike Niagara
Team 6978
Thank you for all your support of our team! Without your sponsorship, this build season would not be possible. Here is what we have been working on over the past week.
Robot Weight
To reduce the weight of our robot, we streamlined the materials used and discovered we could remove the dedicated algae pickup assembly. During prototype testing, we found that the coral pickup assembly could also collect the algae game piece, making the algae pickup unnecessary-an exciting discovery by the team! Additionally, we decided to remove the algae assembly to free up space for other components and ensure the robot stays within the 115 lb weight limit.
Fundraiser
Our pasta night was a fantastic success! Students enjoyed serving pasta to our guests and taking part in the exciting raffle basket contests. A huge thank you to everyone who attended the fundraiser and participated in our activities!
Wiring
We are nearing the completion of our robot’s fabrication, with most components assembled and secured to the frame. Our build team is now working on a lightweight hanging mechanism, while the electrical team is finalizing the wiring. Testing is underway to verify all connections, with a focus on encoder calibration for the coral pickup and motor functionality checks.
Mounting ACCESSORIES
As we approach the final stages, we are attaching key components such as the camera, sensors, and lights. Once everything is in place, our drive team will begin practicing with the robot, and our coding team will fine-tune the software to optimize performance for smoother operation.
View all newsletters - 2025 February Update
February Update
Week 5 • February 2025
Quickstrike Niagara
Team 6978
Thank you for all your support of our team! Without your sponsorship, this build season would not be possible. Here is what we have been working on over the past week.
February Newsletter
Over the past month, our team has been actively brainstorming and prototyping our robot design to tackle the game’s required tasks. Using Onshape, students have been developing these prototypes, while the students on the build team refine the design to maximize efficiency and performance. With just five weeks remaining until our first competition at Niagara College in Welland, we are focused on finalizing and optimizing our robot.
Robot Weight
FIRST has updated the robot specifications this year, setting the maximum weight limit at 115 lbs. Currently, our robot exceeds this limit by 15 lbs without the battery, bumpers, and arm. To address this, our build team is diligently working to reduce weight by replacing certain metal components with thinner, lighter materials. While this requires disassembling and modifying parts of the robot, our team is efficiently tackling the challenge to ensure compliance with the new regulations.
New Parts
Our team has collaborated effectively to develop three new components to help us achieve our game objectives. Over the past few weeks, we have designed and fabricated an algae manipulator, enabling us to pick up and transport algae to the designated goal-either the algae processor or the barge-to earn points. Additionally, we have built a coral intake system, allowing our robot to collect coral and bring it onboard. This system feeds into the coral gripper, which is currently under construction, and will enable us to strategically place coral onto the reef to score points.
Extra Swerve Drives
For the 2024 season, we upgraded from a tank drive system to advanced swerve drives, significantly improving our robot’s performance. Based on their success, the team ordered an additional set for this year’s robot, along with spare units for unexpected situations during competition. Swerve drives are a vital part of our robot’s success, providing increased speed, precise maneuverability, and adaptability to obstacles and other teams’ robots on the field.
PAsta Dinner
Join us for a pasta dinner fundraiser at Club Capri on February 12th from 6:00 to 7:30 PM, with takeout available from 5:00 to 7:00 PM. Tickets are $25. Enjoy a delicious meal featuring pasta, meatballs, salad, and dinner rolls while we showcase our 2023-2024 season robot. A 50/50 raffle will run from 5:00 to 8:00 PM, along with additional raffle prizes. Our LEGO robotics team will also be present, demonstrating their skills. Don’t miss this exciting evening of great food and robotics!
View all newsletters - 2025 Kickoff Newsletter
2025 Kickoff Newsletter
Week 1 • January 2025
Quickstrike Niagara
Team 6978
Thank you for all your support of our team! Without your sponsorship, this build season would not be possible. Here is what we have been working on over the past week.
2025 Kickoff
Welcome to Quickstrike Niagara’s 2025 season kickoff! We began the season on Saturday January 4th with the exciting reveal of this year’s game. Just like last year, we divided into groups to analyze the game manual. Each student focused on a specific section, then shared their findings with the rest of the team. This collaborative approach allowed us to quickly understand the game’s requirements and jumpstart the design process for our robot. Following the manual review, we brainstormed ideas for how our robot could tackle the tasks needed to maximize points during matches.
Designing the Robot
After the robot is built, we’ll need to test it extensively. Each build season, we construct field objects and game pieces to practice with. This year is no different, as we’ve been busy assembling and experimenting with components for the 2025 game. One crucial element we’re working on is The Barge, which will allow us to test our robot’s climbing capabilities. Without these practice elements, we wouldn’t know how well our robot performs until competition, which could make troubleshooting a challenge. These preparations are key to ensuring our robot is ready for the season.
Preparing Materials
Creating a high-performing robot requires careful planning and strategic decision-making. To maximize our performance within the constraints of time and resources, we’re carefully evaluating which features to include. Challenges this season include adapting to new devices and game pieces. For instance, we need to figure out how to properly mount and use the new radio. Another significant challenge is designing a mechanism to maneuver Coral pieces and place them on The Reef both quickly and accurately. Solving these problems is essential to building a robot capable of excelling in competition.
Next Steps
Looking ahead, our focus will shift to prototyping key functions for the robot. We plan to develop a 3-axis arm for picking up Coral and an algae pickup mechanism, similar to the note collector we used last season. Additionally, our robot will need to climb, so we’ll be tackling the challenge of navigating this year’s complex climbing elements. These prototypes will be critical as we move closer to finalizing our design and ensuring that our robot is competition-ready.
View all newsletters - STEMley Cup Newsletter
Offseason Preparation
Week 14 • October 2024
Thank you for all your support of our team! Without your sponsorship, this build season would not be possible. Here is what we have been working on over the past week.
STEMLEY CUP
The STEMley Cup is an off-season competition that we participated in to gain experience on our new Swerve-Drive and for our new members to gain experience in FIRST Robotics Competitions.
Preparations
In the weeks prior to the competition we built new bumpers to protect the robot, reinforced the swerve drive and removed the robots ability to climb on the stage because it was not a necessity. We changed our programming language from Java to C++, which will make the robot more efficient and run code up to 200 times faster. We also traveled multiple times to our practice field to practice and teach driving to our more inexperienced drive team members.
Competition DAy
In our first match, we had a controller error that made our controls inverted, as well as a vision failure with our gyro sensor, but despite these issues we won the match thanks to our alliance partners. In between our first and second match we repaired these issues. In one of our matches we had to make last minute changes to our blue bumpers due to them being too low to the ground as we found the brackets were damaged. We successfully made it to finals with the help of our alliance, and earned second place overall, overcoming all the technical errors we encountered. Our drive team members gained experience through the competition that ultimately led to our teams success.
Next Steps
Our next steps for the off season are to teach programming, design, driving, and learning how to operate the machines at our disposal. We will also be fixing minor issues within the robot to ensure that the errors we experienced during the competition do not happen again.
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