Category: FRC

2019 FIT District Channelview

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Last weekend, students, mentors, and parents of Texas Torque traveled to Channelview, Texas to compete for our first competition of the season. Ray, the 2019 robot, competed in 10 qualification matches and ended in rank 13.  Texas Torque joined the alliance captain team 5261 Cyber Shock and Team 7494 Circuit Bizurkers to compete in the elimination rounds as the fourth seed alliance. The teams advanced to the finals and ended with a 9-9-1 record. Although there were some problems with the robot, overall Texas Torque performed very well. Congratulations to Team 624 Cryptonite, Team 3834 Crab-bots, and alliance captain Team 5892 Energy HEROs for winning the district championship.

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Torque was also very proud to be awarded with the Safety Award- sponsored by Underwriters Laboratories as well as safety captain Victoria Tatman for being awarded “Safety Star of the Day” by Underwriters Laboratories.  Additionally, for the second year in a row, the team won Engineering Inspiration Award for our outreach efforts.

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Check out our Channelview Recap video!

 To keep up with the District Del Rio Event that we are competing at this weekend, be sure to follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or The Blue Alliance for updates on our progress.

The Remix 2018 Cancellation

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Hello everyone,
Texas Torque will unfortunately not be able to host The Remix 2018 game.

The main purpose of The Remix was helping rookie teams gain experience, train rookie team members, and raising money for donations. We would still like to accomplish these goals and therefore will be working on other projects in the community.

For the teams that have been preparing for The Remix, we are planning to host a smaller ‘Rookie Roundup’ where the main purpose will be to train rookie and pre-rookie teams for the upcoming 2019 season. We hope to have more information in the next couple of days.

Thank you for your patience with us as we plan out these upcoming events. if you have any questions, feel free to contact Texas Torque at [email protected].

China Trip- July 2018

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Texas Torque went abroad from July 20th through the 29th to participate in 2018 Chinese Robotics Challenge. At the competition, Texas Torque represented the United States by advancing to the semifinals as a part of the third seed alliance. Alongside Beijing-based teams 7095 HiMach and 5449 Prototype, Texas Torque showed off their 2018 robot Armageddon. Team 1477 mentor, Matt Davies, performed as Master of Ceremonies for the competition, bringing his southern charm to the opposite side of the globe. After the tournament concluded, event organizers took foreign teams on a tour of local areas around the South China Sea.

The team representatives also participated in cultural events. During the China exchange activity, Texas Torque took a fourteen-hour bullet train ride to Zhengjiang to meet team 6304 EAGLE and visit their facility. After the tour, Texas Torque revisited its past by competing with soccer robots against EAGLE.  Other activities included learning from experts in paper cutting, modeling clay, and Chinese knot making. When some members of the team fell sick, EAGLE generously covered the hospital bills. The team representatives visited Cultural History museums where they put their hands into fermented foods, ate specialty noodles, and viewed culturally significant artifacts. The final stretch of the trip involved Torque visiting the village of Zhen and a nearby Buddhist temple.

The team members that went on this once-in-a-lifetime trip received cultural and robotics knowledge, as well as developed international friendships. Texas Torque is extremely grateful for the opportunity to represent the United States given by Team EAGLE and hope for future cooperation.

2018 FIRST Houston World Championship

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Texas Torque’s last official event of the 2018 season was the Houston World Championship (our 8th consecutive World Championship) after triple qualifying at Lone Star Central (Regional Winners, Engineering Inspiration) and South Florida Regional (Chairman’s Award). The World Championship was held in George R. Brown Convention Center and Minute Maid Park, both held in our area, Houston, brought over 400 teams to Houston.

Texas Torque played on the Carver field, competing against 67 other teams for a spot on Einstein. After tough qualification matches, Texas Torque ended at the 47th position, with 4-6-0 record. Although the ranking was lower than anticipated, the robot performed well by continuously being the robot by being one of the robot that placed the most cubes. We were picked by team 5026 Iron Panthers, and together we picked team 108 SigmaC@T and team 1622 Spyder; together the teams formed the seventh seeded alliance. During the playoffs, our alliance was eliminated in the quarterfinals.

Congratulations to Carver division alliance on the World Championship finalists! We would also like to congratulate our friends 2468 Team Appreciate for their Hall of Fame Finalists, and team 148 Robowranglers for winning the Houston World Championship! We would also like to congratulate team 1311 Kell Robotics for their induction into the Hall of Fame.

We’re thankful to have enjoyed a successful and action-packed 2018 season, but the action hasn’t ended yet — we’ll be facing the boss this may at the Texas UIL State Championships!

2018 Repsol Student Awards

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On Thursday, April 12, Texas Torque was invited to attend the Repsol Student Awards, an event created by Repsol to recognize students who placed first in any local STEM related school district competition.

We demonstrated our 2018 robot “Bravo”, a version of our bagged competition robot, which we built for drive team practice in our lab. Although the stage space was too small to fully use and extend our robotic arm, we were able to invite NASA Astronaut Dr. Anna Lee Fisher to drive “Bravo” around the stage.

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At the event, Texas Torque members had the opportunity to speak with Dr. John Charles, a NASA researcher and head scientist, Dr. Anna Lee Fisher, a NASA Astronaut and Medical doctor, the president of Repsol, and our school district’s remarkable superintendent Dr. Don Stockton. Both Dr. Charles and Dr. Fisher were kind enough to sign Bravo’s blue bumpers after taking group photos.

A high-achieving local FLL team 983 had also been invited to the Repsol Student Award ceremony, and the FLL team presented their own homemade video showcasing their achievements, much like an FRC Chairman’s Award video.

Texas Torque was honored to attend the event and we were happy to present our accomplishments  to our local business community, from parents, to small business owners, to major corporations.

2018 Lone Star Central Regional

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This past weekend, the students, mentors, and parents of Texas Torque gathered at the Strake Jesuit school in downtown Houston for the 2018 Lone Star Central Regional. Armageddon, our 2018 robot, performed consistently well in qualification matches and earned us a spot as captains of the first-seed alliance. We teamed up with team 4587 Jersey Voltage, the second seed, and team 6377 the Howdy Bots.

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Throughout elimination matches, we performed well, demonstrating coordinated autonomous modes and skilled cooperation. With the help of our alliance partners, we emerged undefeated and with the regional win. This is the second year in a row our team has won the Lone Star Central Regional, and we couldn’t have done it without our supportive mentors and parents!

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During the awards ceremony, we made quite a few trips down to the field to collect our awards: on top of being Regional Winners, our team won the Safety Award, as well as Engineering Inspiration for our outreach efforts. We were also thrilled when Jackson Schilling, our Mechanical Lead and Sponsorship Liaison, won Dean’s List! He is our team’s FIRST Dean’s List Finalist, and we are so proud of everything he has done for the team.

Texas Torque would like to thank our amazing alliance partners 4587 Jersey Voltage and 6377 Howdy Bots for a great run in the Lone Star Central Regional. We’d also like to congratulate the finalist alliance, including team 5417 Eagle Robotics, the Regional Chairman’s Winners.

Our team will be competing in the South Florida Regional next week! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or The Blue Alliance for updates on our progress.