Entrepreneurship Record

The complete redesign and reworking of the business plan this year has proven valuable, for the team has already won the Entrepreneurship Award twice within three competitions. This development has helped Cybersonics set a record for the Entrepreneurship Awards held by any FIRST Robotics Team Worldwide and helped boost team morale for the upcoming competition in St. Lois.

The Entrepreneurship Award is given to a team, which displays entrepreneurial spirit through its comprehensive business plan. In addition to reviewing the business plan, the judges receive a full presentation from the team representative at which they must answer any questions the judges have regarding the team. Cybersonics is proud of its team representative, Bella Angel, for leading the creation of the business plan and representing the team well during the interview portion of the award. The business plan is a primary goal of the team, and the members are proud to know that their hard work was well spent.

Orlando and Upper Darby Regional Competitions

Cybersonics Technology Team 103 is reaching the end of its competition season, and as it progresses to FIRST World Championships, the team is grateful for the experience and memories this year’s regional competitions have given it. Recently, Cybersonics participated in a two regional competitions following the Mt. Olive Regional Event.

Cybersonics was extremely excited to attend the much-anticipated Orlando Regional hosted by the University of Central Florida during March 12-14. The team traveled to Orlando and stayed at Disney World for a few extra days during our week stay in addition to attending the competition. At the competition, Cybersonics ultimately came in sixth place. Although in the selection process Cybersonics had the opportunity to select its own alliance, the team chose to join the fifth alliance with Team 3653 The Broward Botcats and Team 1876 The Beachbotics. The Orlando Regional Competition featured 64 teams, which allowed Cybersonics to forge relationships with teams from all over the world.

Two weekends later, Cybersonics attended the MAR Regional Competition, which was hosted closer to Cybersonics’ hometown at Upper Darby High School. At this competition, Cybersonics finished in eighth place with its alliance of Team 708 Hatters Robotics and Team 357 Royal.

At both events, Cybersonics received the Entrepreneurship Award, which is awarded to the team based on its comprehensive business plan. The business plan details the fundraising, goal setting, and management of the team, and Team 103 completely redesigned it this year. The awards Cybersonics has received this year have allowed it to set a record regarding the Entrepreneurship Award. As of 2015, Cybersonics now has received the most Entrepreneurship Awards of any given FIRST Robotics Team in the world.

Mt. Olive Outlook

This Saturday will mark the first competition that Team 103 participates in during 2015. Mr. Willman, head mentor in the Manufacturing department, said, “I think this weekend will be a weekend where we finalize strategy, and I think… this weekend will be a weekend to build upon.” Mr. Willman went on to say that if Cybersonics does well, than it will be able to keep everything the same, but he sees this competition as a learning experience. At the Mt. Olive, competition 103 intends to find out where they stand, and improve based on those standings, for the end of the season leading up to Upper Darby and St. Louis. Cybersonics’ performance at Mt. Olive will play a large role in deciding how the team uses its time for the next few weeks and will set the tone for the rest of competition season.

Slingshot

Today, Palisades High School students had the opportunity to watch the film Slingshot, an inspiring film about Dean Camen, founder of FIRST, and his innovative ways. Cybersonics hosted the event, and the entire team, as well as many technology, science and art students students attended the showing. The film helped connect Team 103 with their roots in industry and better informed the team of FIRST’s beginnings and inspiration. Cybersonics relies on the support it gets from FIRST and the community.

This showing was a wonderful way to connect Cybersonics with the local community, and connect Palisades High School’s students with the team. This showed students what FIRST was and its role in technology. The movie also provided encouraging words for the students and spread the Dean’s message to work hard and never give up.

Scouting

With build season finished, Cybersonics has allowed itself to slow down a little bit, but students are still working as hard as ever. The schedule has been changed, as the teams, efforts have become less demanding, and the team is finished with this year’s largest projects.

Cybersonics is looking forward to its first competition tomorrow, which will only include the drive team scouting other teams. Next week Cybersonics will be competing at Mt. Olive High School in NJ, and this week our drive team is visiting MAR District Competition at Hatboro Horsham High school. This excursion will allow the drive team to get a sense of what competition will be like this season and start scouting other teams before they have to simultaneously compete.

Build Season Lookback: PR & Marketing

From the business plan, to the website, Cybersonics’ PR & Marketing department rebranded the team style to be more trendy while maintaining our signature elements. This took much of PR & Marketing department’s time and required its members to work as hard as ever to complete all of its projects in time to include them in award submissions. This pressed the department with demanding time constraints, especially with the limits of the winter’s weather. Because of these deadlines, the team accumulated valuable time management skills in the process.

Among the hardest challenges of 2015, Cybersonics had to train an abundance of new members with its dwindling supply of upperclassmen. This proved to be difficult, yet the seniors rose to the challenge, developing important leadership skills, and the new members cultivated their self-teaching skills to ease the burden on the seniors. The 2015 build season’s challenges were crucial learning experiences and Team 103 has grown from all of them.

Build Season Lookback: Manufacturing

The 2015 build season in Manufacturing proved to be challenging, yet valuable for Cybersonics’ Manufacturing members. 2015 came with a change in leadership in the Manufacturing department, the members gladly welcoming Mr. Reckner. Members say that his vast experience helped them learn new concepts and processes this build season, and the department adopted a number of new approaches to the build process. Manufacturing held a number of off-season training sessions and implemented a different drive train.

This year, Manufacturing was much more student led than it had been in the past, and members were happy to have more independence as a department. Manufacturing focused more on prototyping and research, and held more frequent team discussions. 2015 came with a number of improvements for the manufacturing department. The changes made this year will stay with Cybersonics for ages to come.