The Cat in the Hat Comes Back

Andrew – age: 18 – 6th year on the team.
Powder Coating Captain

Grayson – age: 16 – 5th year on the team
CAD Designer and 3D Printing leader

Owen – age: 15 – 4th year on the team
Manufacturing 

Megan – age: 14 – 5th year on the team.
Programmer, Notebook and Generalist

Matt – age: 18 – 4th year on the team.
Robot Design and Assembly

Jacob – age: 15 – 3rd year on the team
Videos, Powder Coating and Generalist

Evie – age: 17 – 2nd year on the team
Notebook, Tech Team, Scouter

Joe – age: 14 – 2nd year on the team
Robot assembly and CAD apprentice

Daniel – age: 14 – 2nd year on the team
Programmer

AJ – age: 14 – 1st year on the team
Generalist 

Michael – age:14 – 1st year on the team
Generalist

Andrew – age: 17 – 5th year on the team.
Powder Coating Captain

 Andrew is our master powder coater and has trained many of his team members to powder coat to maintain the robot’s professional appearance. Dabbling into Java and CAD, he is aggressively working to expand his knowledge and role on the team. In the past year, Andrew tried his hand at Emcee and would like to do it again this season. We all enjoy having his sense of humor on our team. 

Fun Fact: Andrew is basically the human version of “Come at me, Bro”. Markiplier raging and upbeat music are his inspirations to do his best on the team. 

Grayson – age: 16 – 5th year on the team
CAD Designer and 3D Printing leader

Java programming was introduced to Grayson two years ago and he is a skilled designer of parts for the robot. He has honed his skills and has a strong foundation in Computer-Aided Design (CAD). He leads our Discord server which allows the team members to communicate and share information when team members are working on projects away from practice.  Grayson’s future is bright, he will help anywhere as he has insight on how to do almost any task. He will be a key piece in the future years of the team. 

Fun Fact: Grayson likes cats, animal crackers, playing music, and chatting on Discord.

Owen – age: 15 – 3rd year on the team
Manufacturing 

Owen has put in tremendous work to be our team’s CNC guy. He is passionate about his machining role and is putting in 110%. Oftentimes he comes and performs CNC cutting and powder coating work on off days so the team has parts ready to install at the next practice. We see a bright future for Owen.

Fun Fact: Owen listens to music while he works, because if he’s not, in his words “Is likely to be a distraction to both my teammates and myself”.

Megan – age: 14 – 4th year on the team.
Programmer, Notebook and Generalist

Megan is ready to learn anything and everything. She is programming in Java, uses CAM in Fusion 360 to machine parts, and helps work on the notebook. She creates the daily meeting document and also makes sure everyone enters their work before they leave. This year she has worked on and written more in the engineering notebook in the absence of Sara, a former team member. She really understands how to be a good presenter of facts and information. 

Fun Fact: Megan tends to be very easily distracted by cats. She takes joy in musical instruments and singing.

Matt – age: 17 – 3rd year on the team.
Robot Design and Assembly

Matt has become more familiar with fusion 360 and CADed than last year.  He has learned a lot from working with Joe the past few years and doing his best to fill the lead design role that Joe left behind. He prefers design work but also enjoys programming. Matt is a very hard worker and we are lucky to have him on the team!

Fun Fact: Quietest person we’ve ever had on the team.

Jacob – age: 14 – 2nd year on the team
Videos, Powder Coating and Generalist

This is Jacob’s second year on the team. He likes taking on different roles such as programming, working on the robot, making videos for our Youtube channel, and trying out CAD. As of yet, he seems to have an interest in video production. His future is bright as he is a very capable team member. 

Fun Fact: Nobody can tell he has red hair when he wears the hat.

Evie – age: 16 – 2nd year on the team
Notebook, Tech Team, Scouter

Evie is in her second year on the team, and is one half of the Tech Team along with Jacob.  She mainly helps with streaming, social media, and the Engineering Notebook, although she is willing to help wherever needed!  This is her eighth year in FIRST programs, and she wants to continue until she is eighteen.   She had fun doing scouting at tournaments last year, and hopes to continue to do that this year even if it may look a bit different.

Fun Fact: Loves listening to music, watching anime, and looking at memes.

Joe– age: 13 – 1st year on the team
Robot assembly and CAD apprentice

Joe is entering his 5th year in FIRST.  He wants to learn as much as physically possible about robotics. Joe helps manage the Trello account.  He also works as the odds-&-ends man.

Fun Fact: Joe is a Star Wars nerd and loves eating food.

Daniel – age: 14 – 1st year on the team
Programmer

Daniel is in his first year on the team, and we are happy to have him!  He is learning to do programming from a former team member that also happens to be his older brother, Anthony. He also desires to learn more about Java, and hopes to expand his knowledge as the season goes on.

Fun Fact: Daniel is trying to remake Monopoly on Khan Academy.

Alex – age: 18 – 4th year on the team.

Computer Aided Design (CAD) Captain

Alex is a master when it comes to CAD, CAM, CNC machining and 3D printing. This year he has expanded his capabilities and is programming odometry and motion profile. He has become a primary teacher to our team members in these fields. His goal is to teach others good design techniques, effective design analysis, and the processes and tools to create effective robot parts and CAD assemblies.  You’ll find most of his work in the design, and CAD sections of our notebook. Alex, along with Joe and Anthony excel at technical outreach to other teams; they have taught CAD classes, drivetrain, Machine Vision and CNC presentations to assist other team’s growth. 

Alex is a senior and is pursuing a degree in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Computer Science.

Fun Fact: Alex has a great sense of humor and often goes off on pun runs with Joe. 

Joe – age: 18 – 5th year on the team.
Mechanical Design Captain 

Joe excels at mechanical design. He is able to almost instantly break down complex mechanical problems into practical and functional solutions.  He is an avid user of Computer Aided Design (CAD) and he develops full CAD models for each area he works on, down to each bearing and screw. In CAD he creates assemblies with moving joints and animation. This allows him to test and verify the design before releasing the parts to be manufactured. 

This year Joe has taken a very active role in training his replacements. He is mentoring Matt, Jacob, Grayson and other team members on the process he uses to develop functional robot features and how to document them in CAD, our notebook, and in the parts system. Joe also teaches classes to other FTC and FLL teams on good mechanical design. In addition, he teaches classes on the Benefits of CNC machining and 3D printing.

Joe is a Senior and pursuing a degree in Mechanical Engineering. 

Fun Fact: Joe is a typical Country person at heart, which means that he loves to be outside, is a great outdoorsman, and he likes to listen to country music. He has an affinity for going on pun runs with Alex.

Anthony – age: 18 – 4th year on the team. 

Software Design and Programming Captain

Anthony is a skilled and seasoned programmer, he has been a key programmer since he joined the team. This year he programmed our machine vision using Tensor flow to detect the Skystone and deliver it to the building zone. He also programmed the moving of the foundation into the building area. In addition, he is working with team members to develop odometry and motion profile.  

He is actively training his replacements as he is ageing out this year.  He is mentoring Matt, Grayson, and Megan to become the next generation of programmers.  Anthony also teaches programming basic and advanced classes including machine vision. 

Anthony is a strong leader within the team and is a former Sherburne County 4-H STEM club President. (Positions are only held for 12 months)

Anthony is pursuing a Degree in Engineering. 

Fun Fact: He enjoys watching Anime. Country music is one of his jams and he is also an avid outdoorsman.

Sara – age: 17 – 4th year on the team.

Communications and Notebook Captain

Sara is the Communications and Notebook Captain. She posts  information about our team on Twitter and Instagram, and manages the team’s emails. 

Sara’s passion is the notebook. She leads the professional and consistent appearance of the notebook (and robot), pushed for style guides for consistency, and reviews the written text by the other team members. She insists team members input their daily work into the meeting notes at the end of the meeting. 

She is a strong advocate of using digital tools, such as google doc, so any team member can enter updates to the notebook from any location at anytime.  Sara is also working to transfer her knowledge to the younger team members. She is working with Andrew, Evie, Katie and others to take over her role next year.  As a key leader she has grown from a shy public speaker that now presents classes on notebook development with more than 100 attendees. 

Sara is a Senior and plans to obtain a degree in Marketing and Communications. 

Fun Fact: Sara enjoys learning about history and reading old books. She is quite a character despite her professional approach to the Notebook and Robotics.

Andrew – age: 15 – 4th year on the team.
Powder Coating Captain

 Andrew is our master powder coater and has trained many of his team members to powder coat to maintain the robot’s professional appearance.  He has trained, Owen, Jacob, Joe, and others. He is aggressively working to expand his knowledge and role on the team. He is the sponge of the team: learning how to lead from Joe, Anthony, Sara, and Alex. As well as working on the engineering notebook. We all enjoy having his sense of humor on our team

 Andrew is clearly the next generation of leaders for this team.  

Andrew is a former treasurer of the Sherburne County 4-H STEM program. (Positions are only held for 12 months) 

Fun Fact: Andrew is basically the human version of “Come at me, Bro”. Markiplier raging and his songs are his inspiration. 

Grayson – age: 15 – 4th year on the team
CAD Designer and 3D Printing leader

Java programming was introduced to Grayson two years ago and he is a skilled designer of parts for the robot. He has honed his skills and has a strong foundation in Computer-Aided Design (CAD). He is often designing and printing parts on the 3D printer. He designs both PLA plastic objects for the robot and TPU flexible objects for our sweeper intake. He converts the STL files to gcode using Simplify3D, and before you know it we have 3D printed robot part.  He leads our Discord server which allows the team members to communicate and share information when team members are working on projects away from practice. Grayson’s future is bright, he will help anywhere as he has insight on how to do almost any task. He will be a key piece in the future years of the team. 

Fun Fact: Grayson likes cats, animal crackers, playing music, and being on discord.

Megan – age: 13 – 3rd year on the team.
Programmer, Notebook and Generalist

Megan is ready to learn anything and everything. She is programming in Java, uses CAM in Fusion 360 to machine parts, and helps work on the notebook. She creates the daily meeting document and also makes sure everyone enters their work before they leave.. She also creates documentation such as our wiring diagrams, details to our technical and presentation documents.

As a younger member she does task on task and really understands how to be a good presenter of facts and information. She is always looking for more ways to help.  

Fun Fact: Megan loves Joy, our large cat. Also, playing the piano, the guitar, and writing songs  are her passions. 

Matt – age: 16 – 2nd year on the team.
Robot Design and Assembly

Matt has jumped in and become a master assembler of drive trains, and he has begun machining parts on our CNC Router. Matt will help whenever needed, and has aspirations to learn CAD and Java Programming our robot. He is often working with Joe to better our robot and to learn as much as he can on engineering. Also, he has started working with the CNC router. Matt is well positioned to take over Joe’s lead design role or become the programming leader. 

Fun Fact: Quietest person we’ve ever had on the team.

Owen – age: 14 – 2nd year on the team
Manufacturing 

Owen has put in tremendous work to be our teams new CNC guy. He is passionate about his machining role and is putting in 110%. Often times he comes and performs CNC cutting and powder coating work on off days so the team has parts ready to install at the next practice. We see a bright future for Owen.

Fun Fact: He is passionate and cares strongly about his work.

Jacob – age: 13 – 1st year on the team
Videos, Powder Coating and Generalist

Jacob is one of our three new 2019-20 team members. He is trying out a lot of different roles to see what he likes. He has done programming, working on the robot, making videos for our Youtube channel, and trying out CAD. As of yet, he seems to have an interest in video production and just learning our teams process. His future is bright as he is a very capable team member. 

Fun Fact: Nobody can tell he has red hair when he wears the hat.

Evie – age: 15 – 1st year on the team
Notebook, Presenter, and Programmer

Evie is another of the new 2019-20 team members. She has started making videos for our youtube channel with Jacob. Evie is on the FLL team JP2 Remix and she has taken a large interest in helping with the Engineering Notebook and social media. Sara is working to transfer her knowledge to Evie and we have faith that she will be able to continue creating even more beautiful notebooks for our team after Sara graduates after this year.

Evie is currently the President of our Sherburne 4-H Stem Program.

Fun Fact: She’s always a positive force.

Katie – age: 14- 1st year on the team
CNC Worker and Robot Assembly

Katie is our third new 2019-20 teammate. Not only is she on our FTC team, she is also on an FLL team, JP2 Fireworks. Katie is learning a lot of skills and she is willing to try everything. She has been helping to make the promote video, finding out where stuff goes, helping CNC parts, and deburring parts for the robot. Owen has been working and she is now cutting parts on the CNC. She is working to become one of our lead Engineers.  

Fun Fact: She has celebrated her birthday at 3 First World Championships. 

Alex – age: 17 – 3rd year on the team.  

Computer Aid Design (CAD) Captain

Nickname: The Mad Cadder

Alex is a master when it comes to CAD, CAM, CNC machining and 3D printing. He has become the primary teacher to our team members in machining with our team’s CNC router. Although CAD is his main thing on the team, his goal is to teach others how to use all the design tools. You’ll find most of his work in the design and 3D printing sections of our notebook. Most recently he has created a motion video in CREO of our robots drivetrain. Alex and Joe have excelled at outreach to other teams; they have taught CAD classes, done drivetrain presentation and CNC presentations to assist other teams growth and opportunity. All in all, Alex is a hard worker and always gets stuff done. Fun Fact: Alex has a great sense of humor and he often goes off on pun runs with Joe.

Joe – age: 17 – 4th year on the team.
Mechanical Design Captain

Nickname: Country Boy

This master builder can build anything and is always willing to try. He has developed a love and fascination for Computer Aided Design (CAD). He now creates full models of the drivetrain and whatever he is working on; down to each bearing and screw. What has been amazing is his transformation from building by hand and best judgement to using CAD and engineering tools to make the great designs he has in his head. One of his favorite things to do is take apart the robot every meeting, much to his teammates chagrin. He likes to call himself the “crazy guy with the hands” and can almost always be found with the robot nearby. Fun Fact: Joe is a typical Country Boy, which means that he loves to be outside, is a great outdoorsman, and he likes to listen to country music. He has an affinity for going on pun runs with Alex.

Anthony – age: 17 – 3rd year on the team.

Software Design and Programming Captain

Nickname: Mr. Knowsall

Anthony is a skilled programmer. He has been a lead programmer since he joined the team. This year, he programmed our vision detection using Vuforia and DogeCV to detect the gold and silver particles. He loves to develop different programs for driving – tank, arcade, mecanum, etc…  Anthony was the Sherburne County 4-H STEM club President. Fun Fact: He enjoys watching Anime. Country music is one of his jams. He is also an avid outdoorsman.

Sara – age: 16 – 3rd year on the team.

Communications Captain

Nickname: The Secretary

Sara is our Communications Captain and posts information about our team on Twitter and Instagram, and sends out team emails. She is coordinating the promote video with Owen. Sara has been performing notebook technical writing, and had a great learning session with Perry Baesler an Eaton Technical writer. The team has a goal to improve our notebook from last year and Sara is leading the charge. She can do anything and is really helpful, however, she is always down for a figurative “fight”. Fun Fact: Honestly, she’s just really great to be around. She has to use a step stool in order to reach the top shelf.

Andrew – age: 14 – 3rd year on the team.

Nickname: Biffilo Buff

Andrew is a master powder coater, another builder and all around worker, doing a bit of everything. We all enjoy having his sense of humor on our team even if his taste in music is questionable. Fun Fact: Andrew is basically the human version of “Come at me Bro”.  Markiplier and FNAF songs are his inspiration.

Grayson – age: 14 – 3rd year on the team.

Nickname: Snacky

Java programming was new to Grayson last year and he honed his skills into a strong foundation in Computer Aided Design (CAD). He is often designing and printing parts on the 3D printer. He’s designed both PLA plastic objects for the robot and TPU flexible objects for our sweeper intake. He converts the STL files to gcode using simplify3D, and before you know it we have 3D printed robot parts. He can help anywhere, and one of his proudest accomplishment is assembling the mecanum wheels we tested. Fun Fact: Grayson is quite fond of cats, animal crackers and Minecraft. He enjoys playing music, both on the drums and the piano.

Megan – age: 12 – 2nd year on the team.

Nickname:  Cat Lover

Megan is ready to learn anything and everything. She is programming Java, uses CAM in Fusion 360 to machine parts and helps work on the notebook. She creates the daily meeting document and makes sure everyone enters their work before they leave, so we are very grateful for that.  She also creates our wiring diagrams and brochures. Fun Fact: Megan loves Joy, our large (aka fat) cat. Also, piano and guitar are her passions.

Matt – age: 15 – 1st year on the team.

Nickname: One word man

One of two newest team members. Matt has jumped in and become a master assembler of drive trains, and he has begun machining parts on our CNC Router. Matt will help whenever needed, and has aspiration to learn CAD and Java Programming our robot. He is often working with Joe to better our robot and to learn as much as he can on engineering. Fun Fact: Quietest person we’ve ever had on the team, but he is clearly the sharpest of the group.

Owen – age: 13 – 1st year on the team

Nickname: Shorty

Our second newest team member, Owen has started quickly by soldering connectors to power cables and installing power poles. Our robot wouldn’t run without his early work. He builds, assembles and has taken the lead role in the development of our promote videos. Fun Fact: Despite being almost 6ft, he still enjoys wearing the same Halloween costume multiple years in a row and going trick or treating.

This is our past year and I must say we did pretty good!We had made our way to the FTC World Championship. Click the “How we did” tab for more information.

Here is our teammate list:

Alex, Andrew, Anthony, Aspen, Ben, Grayson, Jackson, Joe, Megan, and Sara