Marking an end to our sixth season, Delta ICE was a good robot for the team this year. We attended the annual IRI (Indiana Robotics Invitational) on July 16th and 17th at Lawrence North High School in Indianapolis. Although historically, our team finishes at IRI have been tough when 79 teams from all over the world consider themselves “All-Stars”, as well as the world championship team attended, makes for some very tough competition none the less. Team THRUST 1501 finished 40th out of 79 teams at the IRI competition. Delta ICE was a great example out how a community of kids can come together with inspiration from local engineers to work on a project to compete at a world level. Even though the robot wasn’t the winner at this year IRI, clearly the kids are all winners by engaging in a project based learning atmosphere where adults mentor kids in STEM related activities. 4-H gives our team a structure that is safe and engaging to our Huntington Community kids that learn about life skills. One day these kids will work in our community as engineers, doctors, lawyers, bankers. Maybe one of them will even invent a cure for cancer. On behalf of the leaders of Huntington County 4-H Robotics, we thank our community again as well as all our sponsors who make it possible to provide such a great learning experience for the kids of Huntington County, Indiana. Now…who’s ready for LEGO League?

Team THRUST 1501 (Huntington County 4-H Robotics) finished up a 2 week static display at Huntington County Public Library along with two live demo dates. Several kids from the community came out and learned about robotics as the team demonstrated DELTA FIRE, the team’s 2010 practice robot for the FIRST Robotics competition. We would like to thank our local library for hosting our robots and showing the community about how Science, Technology, Engineering and Math can be fun to learn.

Team THRUST 1501 will now be getting prepped to attend the annual off-season event, “IRI” in Indianapolis next weekend. Teams from all over the country come to play in Indiana at what has come to be known as the all star game of robotics for FIRST each year. THRUST has attended the IRI as Team 1501 since 2005. If your a new student or mentor interested in joining the team the 2011 season, this is a great time to come along with the team and experience the competition excitement. Please contact us if you’d like to attend, July 16 & 17.

Seth Cook was the recipient of a $1000 scholarship from BAE Systems, selected by Huntington County 4-H Robotics Mentors and Engineers.

Seth Cook is the son of Mike and Cindy Cook of Huntington. Seth plans on attending Trine University and majoring in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Aeronautical Engineering.

For more than 20 years, BAE Systems has been an energetic sponsor of FIRST activities and for the past three years we have been a strategic partner. This year, BAE Systems sponsored 183 teams worldwide, including Huntington County 4-H Robotics, “Team THRUST 1501″, as well as supporting 14 regionals and proudly sponsored the world championship held in Atlanta April 15-17th, 2010.

BAE Systems supports FIRST because they see it as the best hope for developing the next generation of engineers and scientists and as the best path to regain the economic strength this Nation has enjoyed. As part of their effort to “stimulate” the economy, BAE Systems has again provided one $1,000 BAE Systems Inspiration Award in the form of a cash card to a senior from each FIRST team who is planning to attend college and best exemplifies the “inspiration” selection criteria listed below.

The BAE Systems award selection criteria includes:

* Student is a graduating senior and a current team participant.
* Student has received and plans to accept an admission offer to an accredited 4-year college/university program with a stated plan to major in a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering or Math) discipline.
* Student possesses record of significant overall academic achievement, gracious professionalism, and demonstrated leadership skills on his or her FIRST Team.
* Student contributes to greater dimensions of diversity among students selecting an undergraduate STEM major.

The final selection process was given to the local team leaders, mentors and engineers who work the closest with students and submitted the awardee to BAE Systems Corporate in Maryland.

Last Thursday was national “Bring your Child to Work Day”. A day that BAE Systems, Fort Wayne, IN and standing sponsor to Team THRUST put much thought into the hope and future of our kids.  Inspiring one kid at a time to develop new solutions to world problems.

THRUST was one of nine stations that more than 100 kids from the workers of BAE Systems came with their dads and moms to learn about BAE Systems. THRUST was a FIRST robotics display where kids could drive the robots around and ask about the robotics club based in Huntington, IN. Members of THRUST shared their experiences with the program and networked with BAE Systems employees and engineers about how to start or mentor robotics team from LEGO league all the way to FIRST Robotics.

Student President Samir Shaikh directed groups of 10 kids at a time with what FIRST is, how our robotics team is an integral part of life skills and most importantly, how to have fun while learning about Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.

For more information, please visit huntingtondaily.com’s article. Photo provided by Seth Anderson with permission via huntingtondaily.com

Please also see more photos in our gallery by Seth Anderson and other internal BAE System photographer.

THRUST also earned the Entrepreneurship Award sponsored by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers for it’s Police Robot “Fred” that was donated to the Huntington Police Department last summer. A video of the award presentation can be viewed here -  (provided by John Paff)

THRUST finished up the weekend seeding 4th overall out of 56 robots. THRUST selected Gaelhawks 230 and Shifters Team 61 to join their alliance in a battle to the finals. THRUST lost 7-10 in Finals 1 and lost 4-7 in Finals 2 with a double elimination bracket rounds bringing home the Silver Medal and 2nd place overall for the Northeast Utilities FIRST Connecticut Regional. Team 1124 the Uberbots of Avon Connecticut, Team 383 the Brazilian Maching of Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil, and Team 102 the Gearheads of Somerville, NJ took home the gold.  The Brazilian team had registered for Connecticut as well. “They certainly had the better robot, Brazil’s robot was similar to ours in soccer ball handling, kicking and maneuverability, but they had a slick lifter mechanism that would attach to the tower and climb for an additional 2 points. Something we had thought of in our design, but ran out of physical space in our tiny triangle robot.” “As we all watched the finals match, we felt good that Brazil’s robot deserved Gold but not without putting up a good fight.” quotes from several of the students of the team.

“This was certainly one of the most memorable season ever, as we’ve won two major awards from the Purdue Boilermaker Regional, one major award from Connecticut Regional and finally ending the 2010 season with a 2nd place finish at the Regional level.” Lead mentor Chris Elston says. “We were looking for gold at regional so we could play at the world finals in Atlanta, but the bright side is the kids learned a lot of life skills along the way. I think with any competition, a wise person once said, you’ve got to lose some in order to know how to win some.”

2010 Connecticut Regional - Qualification Match 12
Self-righting mechanism deployed.

2010 Connecticut Regional - Qualification Match 44
“Run amok!”

2010 Connecticut Regional - Qualification Match 63
Drive team communication and coordination

2010 Connecticut Regional - Entrepreneurship Award
Recognizing our work to develop Huntington Police Robot, “Fred” (story, photos)

2010 Connecticut Regional - Semi-Final Match 3
A unique scoring method in our third semi-final match, with assist from Rosie. (Ended in a 6-6 tie, counting this ball.)

Full video here

2010 Connecticut Regional - Semi-Final Match 4
In an unusual fourth semi-final match, a quick dodge catches our defender by surprise. This game sent us to the finals!

More videos on our TeamThrust1501 YouTube Channel.

http://www.utc.com/Corporate+Responsibility/First

For more live and update to date information as the weekend unfolds, please visit the following links.

• CT Regional Home
• Schedule
• Team List
• Location & Directions

More links will become active on Friday, April 2, 2010.

Follow Team 1501 at the FRC Connecticut Regional.

Live webcast. (Scroll down to WEEK 5 and select Connecticut Regional)
http://robotics.arc.nasa.gov/events/2010_frcwebcasts.php#webcasts

Match updates will begin Friday:
http://www2.usfirst.org/2010comp/events/CT/matchresults.html

Ranking updates will begin Friday here:
http://www2.usfirst.org/2010comp/events/CT/rankings.html

Award updates will begin Friday here:
http://www2.usfirst.org/2010comp/events/CT/awards.html

Follow us on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/team1501

Qualification Match 47

Qualification Match 42

Qualification Match 36

Qualification Match 31

Qualification Match 24

Qualification Match 19

Qualification Match 8

Qualification Match 1

Live webcast. (Scroll down to and select Boilermaker Regional) http://robotics.arc.nasa.gov/events/2010_frcwebcasts.php#webcasts

Match updates will begin Friday: http://www2.usfirst.org/2010comp/events/IN/matchresults.html

Ranking updates will begin Friday here: http://www2.usfirst.org/2010comp/events/IN/rankings.html

Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/team1501

This is a video shot from the stands in our first qualification round: