G-FORCE (FIRST Tech Challenge Team 2818) competed at the College of Southern MD last weekend and was victorious in the Robot Performance rounds, and also won the "Think" award.

The team was the number 1 seed at the end of qualification, and was undefeated during the eliminations. The team will be competing at the World Championship in Atlanta Georgia from April 14-17th, 2010

The team is shown here with their award.

This cool video shows MIT's "Little Dog" in action over various terrains.

Click for Video

First Sunday of every month.

Come and build Sumo Wrestling Robots out of LEGOs.
Then see how they stack up against other team's robots.

Click the SuGO tab at the top of this page for more details.

Keeping track of all those FTC parts is tricky.

This year we have a rolling bin cart.

Click the pic links below. Now you see them, now you don't.

Phil.

Join us at GEARS to watch the kickoff on the big-screen, or watch it at home online:

Click here to watch

5:00pm Eastern time.

Be there or be booring !!!

I'm Philbot (aka Mr. Phil) and I always have a bunch of onging robot projects, so this is where I'll post links and upload documents and code.

Right now FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) is my major focus, so stay tuned for a bunch of robot designs, videos and sample LabVIEW code.

Did you see the new robotics demonstrations at the Garrett County Fair this year? Thanks to the high school level FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) G-FORCE team for sharing their robotic enthusiasm with others through out the week.

Each evening from 4-8 pm by the 4-H building, the team demonstrated different robotic platforms. On Monday evening, all ages enjoyed building with the LEGO WeDo sets. These sets have step-by-step directions to build 12 different projects such as the munching alligator and the drumming monkey. The sets were purchased through 4-H Afterschool funds and the team has helped with several Afterschool workshops, a class at the Maryland State Teen Focus this summer, and plans to offer a class at the Maryland State Teen Forum this fall in Ocean City with the WeDos.

Did you see the new robotics demonstrations at the Garrett County Fair this year? Thanks to the high school level FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) G-FORCE team for sharing their robotic enthusiasm with others through out the week.

On Friday, the team demonstrated their award winning robot, “Philbot.” G-FORCE won the FTC Inspire Award at the Maryland State FTC Tournament and earned the right to attend the World FTC Championship in Atlanta, Georgia. The team won the Finalist Award (second place) for the World Championship! Since they have returned home from Atlanta in April, the student team members have all committed to community outreach and have already volunteered over 500 hours of direct one-on-one mentoring for technology activities this season alone. These activities include students demonstrating our FTC robot, mentoring at our Underwater Robotics Event, helping with summer Technology Camps for grades 1-5, assisting with the FLL summer workshop, and conducting 4-H After School Robotic Workshops. The team has impacted over 200 youth and 180 adults through our robotic community outreach prior to the fair. They plan to continue to share their enthusiasm about the FTC program at the upcoming Maryland.

G-FORCE is a 4-H "FIRST Tech Challenge" team, who went all the way to the Nationals in Atlanta in their rookie season (2008/9). This year, G-FORCE is working with 4-H to inspire other teams to join the robotics fun, and be FIRST in line for all the cool Science and Technology careers out there.

This year's game will be announced September 12th at 5:00pm, so G-FORCE will be busy at GEARS this weekend.

While out shopping, we stumbled on a LEGO store.
I couldn't help going in...

So much LEGO... so little time.

ps: I'm not posting a photo of me in the Apple Store :)