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Years before the Liberty High School Robotics team had even been conceived, the Carroll County Career and Technology Center (CCCTC) had a robotics team of its own (FRC Team 1464). Students from the entire county were invited to join. In December, 2004 a group of motivated students from Liberty became interested in robotics and joined the team. These students, including members such as Zach Rubin and Matthew Eastman, gained experience that would shape the success of the Liberty High School's Robotics Team two years later.
Over the next two years, various other students from Liberty, such as Ben Markosky, joined the Career and Technology Center's Robotics Team. It was then that Zach Rubin planned to make his own robotics team... the Robo-Lions.
Zach Rubin quickly found a teacher willing to help the students, Mr. James Deitrich, and together they put advertisements on the school announcements and began setting up meetings. The robotics team began to grow and soon there were almost thirty members. They began selling candy bars, visiting businesses, applying for grants-- all in an attempt to earn enough money to compete in the FIRST Robotics Competition. Wonderful companies like General Dynamics, Skyline and NASA generously donated money to the team so that they could enter and compete.
For the 2007 FIRST Robotics Competition, the Robo-Lions had to design and construct a robot that work with another team to place inflatable tubes on a rack and then lift other robots 4 to 12 inches off the ground. Our relatively new team decided that we couldn't complete both tasks, so we chose to build a robot that didn't lift any other robots off the ground but only lifted the tubes. By the end of the competition, we were the widely considered to be the "Masters of the Arena" and our exemplary performance lead us to be guiding party behind the 8th seeded alliance in the elimination rounds. We ended up losing that day and we did not make it all the way to the finals, but this site won the Web Excellence award.
The Baltimore Area Alliance hosted the first annual Battle O' Baltimore in 2007 and the Robo-Lions attended. The Battle of Baltimore was essentially a mini FRC competition. It was also a great learning and social networking experience. While the team performed poorly due to an electronics failure, it was an invalauble experience.
The 2008 FRC game encouraged speed and manipulator operation in order to move around a track and control a large ball. The Robo-Lions had lengthy meetings discussing the game throughout the whole week following the kickoff. The team focused building a quick robot that could handle the trackballs, but not lift them onto the overhead rack. The final product of Build Season was a 100 pound robot, John Mayo, Jr. (named after our fantastic lead programmer). Junior was able to knock down balls from the overpass, pick them up and ferry (or "herd") them around the track. The robot did very well during the teleoperated (human-controlled) period, and had a short but effective autonomous mode. No penalties were placed against us, and our drive team was terrific.
The second Battle of Baltimore was a success for the Robo-Lions. A modified ball knocker performed well, and the team was picked by the 2nd seeded alliance. Unfortunately, equipment failure struck again, but, like before, it was a valuable experience for the team.
The Robo-Lions entered the 2009 season head on, deciding to fully design their robot before building, and because of this the Robo-Lions faced little to no challenges when building the robot. They were also extremely active in the community, giving several professionals presentations in front of multiple businesses and corporate leaders. The Robo-Lions attended two regionals for the first time this year, placing sixth at the DC regional and second at the Chesapeake regional.
The Robo-Lions, having done extremely well at the regionals they attended, applied to enter the Indiana Robotics Invitational, a prestigious off-season event hosted by veteran FIRST teams in Indiana. The team was ecstatic to learn that they were accepted, and traveled to Indiana to compete on July 30-31. The event was a great learning experience, and the team learned several new engineering techniques that they plan to implement in future robots.
The third Battle of Baltimore was a huge success for the Robo-Lions. The team finished the qualification rounds in third place, and then led their alliance to the finals, where they lost during a tense and exciting match. But pmce again, it as invaluable experience to catch up with fellow teams in the Baltimore Area Alliance.
The Robo-Lions are currently scrambling to build, program, and test their robot. They plan to attend the Philadelphia Regional, the Chesapeake Regional, and the Championship.
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