On Saturday, February 8th, we hosted our first ever "mini-scrimmage" by inviting three other FTC teams to the Reading area for a day filled with lots of realistic practice matches.  We were thrilled that Javengers (#16330), Technion (#12564), and AI Robotics (#14464) choose to join us for a fun afternoon of driving, programming, and networking.  The experience was a great opportunity for our team to give back to the FIRST Tech Challenge community and share our learning with some newer teams.  We have received so much assistance over the years and we feel a great sense of responsibility to help other teams grow and become successful.  We know the hard work it takes to put together a quality team, but we also recognize that we couldn't have done it without guidance and advice from others.  While we continue to improve and fine tune our own performances, we hope to also serve as mentors and role models for the young and up-and-coming teams.       

We had the opportunity to give an outreach presentation to the 5th grade gifted students at Green Valley Elementary School (Wilson School District).  Our goal was to connect with the students through hands-on activities and presentation in order to inform the Wilson Community of the benefits of STEM education and the awesome learning experiences and opportunities provided by FIRST.  More specifically, we provided a description of how we organize our team and the roles each sub-team fulfills. Our design team discussed some of the cooler features of our robot and allowed the students to interact with and explore different parts such as our Mecanum Wheels.  Students were also given a brief tutorial in programming languages and were able to use the text-to-speech coding feature to have the robot speak to them. The marketing team demonstrated the importance of seeking sponsorships, making outreach arrangements, and distributed team pens and business cards to the students.  Receiving the little gifts seemed to make them feel extra special. At the end of our presentation, each student had the chance to drive our beginner bot. ​

We did it!  Since our second competitive season, our members have been deliberate in establishing both individual and team goals that we would like to achieve throughout the current year.  Two of those team goals have been: (1) To be a winning alliance captain and (2) To win the Inspire Award.  We have worked very diligently towards both.  Over the past few years, we have come close to achieving them, but always ended just a little short.  Amazingly, we were able to make both goals a reality on the same day.  Our robot performed great throughout the South Central PA Tournament, losing only one close match.  We finished regulation in 2nd place and had the privilege to be an alliance captain.  Our choices, Team #6378 JayBots and Team #12007 JayBorgs, both of Central Columbia High School, complimented our team well and helped propel us to victory.  The finals proved to be a gut-wrenching experience, however,  as we won both matches by less than five points.  If the excitement couldn't get any higher, we were later recognized as the Inspire Award winner too.   What a day!  Undoubtedly, it will surly be a historic one for Kardia Robotics.  

We hope to see everyone this Saturday at the York Qualifier.  Good luck and safe travel in the snowy weather!  GO KARDIA!

Happy New year from the Kardia Robotics team!  As we enter 2020 our design team is cranking away at our Robot 2.0.  We look forward to seeing you at the York and Lehigh Valley Qualifiers!

As our regular season is just one day away the Kardia Robotics team is pumped and ready to roll at tomorrows competition.  We hope that everyone has a great time and learns something new throughout the day.  Good luck to all teams and GO KARDIA!

Just a few days ago our team competed in the Lancaster scrimmage.  We had a great time and showcased our brand new robot for the Skystone season. Our innovative intake system worked without any issues and completed all tasks with accuracy and efficiency. Although our autonomous program did not function properly, our TeleOp program worked smoothly, a feat difficult to master at such an early time in the year. The entire day, our team was undefeated, winning most of our matches by only a small margin.  This gave our team confidence in our robot design and allowed us to understand the way our robot operates. In addition to this, we developed a new scoring and scouting system that we will use and improve upon in the future.Our team also participated in an unofficial judges’ presentation, where we received some very helpful feedback on both our engineering notebook and our speech-making skills. We are grateful for the chance to learn how to better improve our team presentation before our first qualifier.
Our team advanced to the finals and won first over-all. It was a wonderful experience, but mostly we are grateful for the chance to operate our robot for the first time and figure out ways in which we can improve, both structurally and according to our programs.  We enjoyed seeing other team’s designs and strategies and look forward to future competitions.
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With the recent release of this season's FTC game, our team is locked and loaded to dive into the challenge.  Taking on 8 new members, this season marks the largest team that we have had to date.  As the designs come to fruition, we will post weekly updates on our Instagram account.  Follow us at kardia_11208.