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02:32pm, 05/17/08

Pontiac Teacher Honored for Work In FIRST Robotics
Called the "heart and soul of Team 47," since 1995 teacher Michael Martus of Pontiac Central High school has served a volunteer, a ref, an inspector, a coordinator, and a judge in the FIRST Robotics program. On Thursday, Aptil 10, 2008, Martus was announced as the first ever FIRST Robotics Teacher of the Year.

FIRST Robotics Crowns Great Lakes Champs

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VIDEO: FIRST Robotics Regionals

Kettering University and FIRST Robotics: a perfect match

Utica, Detroit, Bloomfield Teams Share FIRST Robotics Crown

Ann Arbor Huron Team Wins FIRST Regional

Rochester FEDS 201

Michigan FIRST Robotics Competition Adds New 'Rookie Regional'

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FIRST Robotics BLOGS

Frog Force

pictures
Our team gets 4 thumbs up!! Our FANTASTIC drive team!!! ...and the after party

Great Lakes Regional
On March 27th Frog Force members arrived at Eastern Michigan and two days later they left, but making a little more noise with two medals hanging around their necks. Team 503 participated in the Great Lakes Regional in 2007. At...

Build Season #2
After competing in the Midwest Regional it became apparent that we needed to redesign our robot if we wanted to be competitive at our next regional competition. Our original design was an arm with a belt to suck in the...

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Juggernaut Juncture

2-13-08 Tweaking: Small Gains, Big Delays!
The final week of robot development has crawled to a snail's pace. Nothing seems to ever work quite like you expect it to. Our catapult, for example, wouldn't fire with the same speed that the prototype did. A week of...

2/7/08 The Evil Snow
Aaarghh! Not another snow day! I never, as a student or teacher, thought I would be praying for us to NOT have a snowday. This is what FIRST does to you: it warps your whole world perspective! With the huge...

The Roller Coaster Ride
It's week 3 plus 3 days and we have crossed the midpoint of the FIRST build period. Mentoring a team certainly has its ups and downs. After a steady stream of 12+ hour days, people are starting to tire out....

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Advanced Power

The Mightiest Blog of Them All
At the moment we're eating chocolate. Today we got seven boxes of late valentines candy. ?Amazing deliciousnessocity?-Jason Rafter. (he is on a sugar high). Backtracking to Saturday, we set up our playing field and had guests. Team 280 aka TNT...

To Dan Slayton and Ellen Pfafflin
As we near the end of the build season, we can?t help but reflect on our roots. Like other teams team 815 was built from the ground up. Every team needs to start somewhere, and for us that start was...

Extreme Hackysack
On Saturday we went to Cabrini?s gym to practice driving our robot. While we were waiting to drive a couple of our team members grabbed the ball for the game and made a game of our own. Extreme Hackysack was...

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The Killer Bees

With no windows in the Bot Cave we don't know the difference between night and day anyway
Carolyn here again. I feel like this laptop has been attached to me all day. Oh wait, that?s right, I *have* been staring at this screen since 9:00 this morning. But wow. Lots of things accomplished today. Sarah Y and...

"It might just work!"
Hi! It?s bright and early on our last official Saturday meeting of build season. Saturdays we get to CTC by 8:00, quite a feat for high school students! But after a quick breakfast, some energy drinks, and a bit of...

The death wheel appears....
Controversy and Dissension! OK, not really. More like a minor speed bump. Two minor speed bumps. (They say things tend to come in threes. Is there one more lurking out there?) Bump 1 - In which the back becomes the...

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Metal Muscle

lonely
Now that our robot is in the crate and off to a dark warehouse for storage we are all now feeling a wee bit lonely. What do we do on our Saturdays and Sundays. Where is the pressure to meet...

memories
It is funny what moments will be remembered long after the build season is over. Yesterday was one such occasion. After we worked on the robot adjusting gears and pulleys, it finally will pick up the ball....we headed out into...

death by transmission
Our transmissions are ....well ...causing us great grief. We did not put them together right...then we had to remove the plates to fit them into the channels of the arm.....soooooooo we have a small set back. Ordering new transmissions may...

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Audio

Students compete to design, build and operate a multi-functional robot in the FIRST Robotics competition.

First Robotics Competition - 2 3/28
More from WWJ's Jeff Gilbert at the First Robotics Regionals in Ypsilanti.

First Robotics Competition 3/28
WWJ's Jeff Gilbert reports from the First Robotics Regionals in Ypsalanti.

First Robotics Competition 3/17
WWJ's Beth Fisher spoke with Sara Pace, a senior at Stevenson High School in Sterling Heights about the First Robotics Competition.

FIRST Robotics - Students 1/4
Three students involved in the FIRST Robotics competition discuss their experiences.

FIRST Robotics - Leaders 1/4
Coordinator Gail Alpert and team leader Jim Zondag, working with students who will compete to design, build and operate a functioning robot.