January 2024 Newsletter
Robotics Center Updates
Thank you again to everyone who made the new Robotics Center possible and helped with the move! The space is working out even better than we imagined. The Mercy Commercial Development group said this is the fastest Tenant Improvement project they’ve been involved in!
We are proud we were able to develop a new 2900 sqft facility as a volunteer non profit! We would have never been able to do this without our partner’s construction funding through tenant improvement funds and grants/sponsorships/donations. Comparable programs around the country that have their own facilities charge $3600-4500 per person for a season!
Grand Opening Tuesday, Jan 23rd
We are hosting a ribbon-cutting ceremony on January 23rd to showcase our programs and express our appreciation to key stakeholders who made this center possible - City of Roseville, Mercy Housing, Downtown Roseville Partnership, Closed Loop, Make Places Smart - and all our partners and sponsors.
We wish we could invite everyone, but given the outside attendees and limited space, the event is invitation only and limited to speakers, sponsors, and those taking an active part in the showcase. We will host end of season socials to celebrate the opening with our teams.
The lab will be completely unavailable on Tuesday, January 23rd; please plan your meeting/practice schedules accordingly.
Volunteer Needs & Apparel
Volunteer signups linked below and will be reposted slack for upcoming events:
VRC League Finals (Middle School, High School) Jan 31 / Feb 1
VRC Invitational Feb 24 (likely at West Park)
Sacramento Bot Battles April 5-6 (at Sierra College)
Extra Apparel will be on sale later this week on a first come first serve basis. Look for details from Jessica Berlin via slack.
Beetleweight Arena Design/Build - we need a couple of parents to help with a new arena construction. See Combat section below.
Stay Connected with Slack, Team Hubs and Google Calendar!
The vast majority of our team communications happen via slack, and our team hubs have good resources/tips for teams. The new Robotics Center bookings are currently managed via the team Google Calendar.
The team hubs also have a Slack Tips section and direct link
Visit the “Member Area” of the team website to access the IQ or VRC/Combat team hubs
PlacerRobotics.org/team-hub (VRC/Combat, grades 7-12)
PlacerRobotics.org/iq-team-hub (IQ grades 4-6)
VEX IQ Corner
The IQ teams wrapped up the the first league Finals at The Robotics Center on Friday, Jan 12th! Thank you to the teams for bringing the energy and having fun at your first tournament championship event! See IQ Slack for the fantastic photos from Scott Chavez! Final results
Excellence Award - 295X BlazeX
Teamwork Champions - 295F, 295X BlazeX
Design Award - 295B
Robot Skills Champion - 295X Blake
Judges Award - 295K
Energy Award - 295R RapidFire
Sportsmanship Award - 295Z Space Hacker
Additional Judges Special Recognition Awards
Overcome Award - 295N Nether Bots
Build Award - 295W E-woks
Best Name - 295H Da N00BZ
295X, 295F, 295B, 295E all qualified for the Regional Championships!
Upcoming IQ Events
Placer IQ Open Tournament - Sunday, January 28th
A regular one-day tournament open to other teams in Northern California. Matches, skills, and judging all in one day. We have ~20 teams attending, with 10 PART IQ participating
Battle for Placer Gold - Invite Only, February 10th
A regular one-day tournament exclusively for Placer IQ League and like-mind, student-centered programs
Matches, skills, and judging all in one day. Four additional State Qualification spots available to teams
Tentatively 9am-1pm
VIQRC NorCal State Championships - March 2nd
Qualifiers will compete in the NorCal Region 2 championships with the opportunity to advance to VIQRC Worlds.
Other Competition Opportunities
Teams that would like to move on to the State Championship may consider attending additional outside tournaments to prepare. Most of these are combined ES/MS events, with open spots in Jan/Feb in the Bay Area and Folsom (Feb 18). Contact the IQ leads to learn more.
IQ Mentor Spotlight
Please thank all the IQ mentors for their dedication this season attending Saturday morning IQ meetings, assisting teams and running our league events! We’d like to especially recognize Julia, Karthik, Reva, Reyna, Soha, Diya and Aarya for their dedication and enthusiasm with the teams.
Full Volume Open Tournament
Sunday, Jan 28th Agenda
7:45 Doors open for volunteers
8:15 Doors open for teams, Check In and Inspection opens, practice fields open
8:45 Check In Deadline, any teams that have not arrived will be dropped from the schedule
9:00 Event/Drivers Meeting
9:15 Matches Begin
12:00 Qualifications conclude, Lunch break
12:30 Teamwork Challenge Final Matches & Awards
1:15 Event concludes
Notebooks
Teams should turn in their updated Notebooks electronically via RobotEvents by end of the day on Wednesday, January 24th.
Interviews & Inspections
We will have time slots 10-12 pm Saturday Jan 27th for early inspections/interviews for teams that are available.
Note, Interviews are optional for teams, but all- judge based awards (excellence, design, judges) require an interview to be considered.
Awards
Excellence Award, Teamwork Challenge Champions (top alliance), Robot Skills Champion, Design Award, Judges Award, Energy Award, and more. The Teamwork Challenge Award goes to the top scoring Alliance on Finals Night. 4 Awards Qualify for the VIQRC Elementary State Championships! The Robot Skills award goes to the team with the top combined Driving and Autonomous Coding
VRC Updates
General Reminders
Region 2 Championship Qualification Paths
There are two routes to Region 2 Qualifications:
Winning a “qualifying award” - this varies by event size, but typically it’s Excellence Award + Tournament Champions. Larger events may include the Design Award, Robot Skills, or others
Earning your way through Region 2 end of season skills rankings. There are typically a large number of double qualifiers in the season. Once qualifiers have registered, additional teams are invited to the event in order of skills rankings.
For teams that have not yet qualified through awards, it’s time to increase your focus on skills. You should develop strong driver and autonomous coding strategies, practice and make sure to run all 3 attempts of each at every event you attend. Our Feb 24th event will be your last chance at improving your skills standing before the final Region 2 invitations are sent out.
Make sure to read the latest VEX tips & common issues document.
Electronics Care
We’ve had a rash of lost and broken electronics recently - particularly controllers , motors and pneumatics. Teams are responsible for damage due to carelessness, and we are finding many teams damaging these components and wires by just throwing everything into the large boxes unprotected. Please make it a point to take better of taking care of your equipment.
Upcoming VRC Events
List of events that teams 295/9537 are currently registered for. See the PART team hub competition event page for complete details. There are some additional MS only and HS/MS events with openings in February if teams are interested in additional tune up competition for NorCal Signature and the Region 2 championships
Placer League Finals - Jan 17/18 (see sidebar)
Battle of the Bay - Jan 20
Panther Roar- Florin High School - Feb 3
Golden West MS Tourney - Feb 3
Wolfpack MS @ Florin High School - Feb 4
NorCal Signature Event HS Feb 16-18
NorCal Signature Event MS Feb 18-19
Battle for Placer Gold Invitational Feb 24
Region 2 Championship weekend March 9/10
League Finals - Details and Agenda
The MS and HS divisions completed qualifications on League Night #3 (Jan 17/18). Teams are now preparing for league finals on Jan 31 and Feb 1st. Current Standings are available on VEXVIA and Robot Events:
MS League Standings
HS League Standings
Finals week will consist of Skills (3 attempts of Driving and Automous Coding Challenges), Optional Interviews for Judging, and then Alliance Selection and Elimination Matches.
Awards
Excellence Award, Tournament Champions qualify for Region 2 Champions for both MS and HS. The MS Design Award also qualifies. Teams must rank in top 30% of qualifications, overall robot skills, autonomous skills, and fully developed notebooks to be eligible for the Excellence Award. Event officials will contact the potential eligible teams based on final qualification rankings. Skills results will be finalized at league finals.
Notebook Submission
Notebook deadline is January 28th - please make sure your digital engineering notebook links are updated in RobotEvents to reflect your latest notebooks.
Optional Judges Interview
Teams have the option to sign up for Judges interviews. Interviews are required to be considered for Excellence, Design or the Judges Award.
Tentative League Finals Agenda (Wed/Thur)
4:00 Doors Open Volunteers, Teams
4:30 Inspection Opens
4:30- 7:15 Optional Judging, Skills Open
7:15 Skills Fields Close , Alliance Selection
7:30 Elimination Matches Begin
8:45 Finals Match, Awards
Combat Robotics
Main combat season is here!
Our 3lb teams competed at NorCal Expo and Bellarmine Bell Brawls this pas fall in the 3lb weight class with some new designs and improved past robots. Sauron & Umarked Grave fought in both events, with The Dryer, Inferno and Pekka competing at NorCal Expo.
The teams are now wrapping up the 15lb CAD designs for our big event of the year - Sacramento Bot Battles. Designs should be finalized within the next week so we can begin ordering parts, working with our manufacturing partners and begin machining / fabrication in the lab.
BattleBots IQ League!
Big News ! BattleBots is officially restarting their BOTS IQ Foundation and will be running a BattleBots IQ National Championship event in Las Vegas at the home of the BattleBots TV show. There will be separate divisions for high school and college, with 15lb and 30lb classes.
In future years, BattleBots IQ intends to develop regional leagues. As the current host of the California Championship event, PART plans on partnering with the restarted Bots IQ Foundation to develop the California league.
PART has been invited to participate in at the showcase launch event on March 10th at the huge South by Southwest Conference in Austin, TX! Our top teams will compete at the National Championships in Las Vegas the weekend of May 11-12.
Upcoming Combat Robotics Events
BattleBots ShowCase @ South By Southwest - March 10
Space limited - select , high performing and engaged team members in good standing will be invited to participate and travel to the event
Sacramento Bot Battles - April 5 & 6
Host by PART @ Sierra College, 15lb BotsIQ Class competition
Mandatory for all combat team members (& combat parent volunteers)
RoboGames April 18- 21
3lb robots, hockey robots. Possibly 1lb or 60lb based on team member availability to work on projects
BattleBots League National Champs May 10-12
Schedule TBD
Top teams and eligible travel team members that are meeting participation requirements
Chaperoned travel, cost TBD based on potential subsidies from event organizers
Beetleweight Arena Grant
Southern California Attack Robots has provided a mini-grant to kickstart our new 3lb combat robotics arena build, and Interstate Materials has joined as a material sponsor.
Our goal is to have the arena up and running by early summer and run small events out of the Robotics Center for our teams and a new Junior Bots program under development for 7-8th graders. Stay Tuned for more details!
If you enjoy designing and building things, or would like to help launch the Junior bot program, contact Kevin to learn how you can get involved.
The Dishwasher
Lunar Eclipse
Slightly Above Average
Executioner