March 0

Team 340 won the Chairman’s Award at the Finger Lakes Regional Competition again this year.  An unbelievable 5 of 6 at FLR.  You have really put yourselves in elite company.  I am very proud of our team and the hard work and dedication put forth by our promotions team.

The minute I walked into the room, I knew there was something special about it.  I was shadowing my friend Mike at his school’s robotics team.  I was a shy freshman from another school, but before I had even spoken with anyone, I knew that this team was extraordinary.  As I shadowed Mike that day, I noticed how friendly and cooperative people were.  By the end of the day I realized that it was not the place that made the team special, nor was it the name the team had built for themselves that made the place special.  Rather, it was the people, their values and principles, and the impact they had made on the community that made both the place and the team amazing.

A year later, I joined Churchville robotics.  I still was shy, I still knew no one, I still had no experience, but I still was excited for the opportunity!  As time has gone on, many things have changed, but my excitement has not.  I have become outgoing, I can defend my ideas, and I can solder and gauge wire like a pro (but not as leet as Don, Spencer, Mr. Cripps or Cory Duell).  Of the past 3 build seasons that I have participated in, this year has definitely been the most challenging.  We struggled to create a good working board this year.  After much wiring, tracing, debugging, rewiring, and lots of patience on the part of the programmers, we have created a board we will be bringing to Atlanta!  Not everything we did this year was work though.  We played KenKen, we discussed the biology behind why you should never go binge drinking, I learned to program trapezoidal approximation on my calculator, I made a snow angel, and I CADed it up a notch (though not as much as last year)!

These past few years have been awesome.  I’ve discovered that it’s ok to be myself.  I’m a nerd, and proud of it!

In conclusion, let n = nerds

n = 2² ever.

Presidential Service Awards were passed out to nineteen team members. These students volunteered for Community Service with the following hours.

• Bronze: 100
• Silver: 200
• Gold: 250

Back: Bryan(S), Jen(B), Stephen(S), Taylor(B), Luke(B), Dilan(B)

Front: Christa(B), John(G), Juliana(B), Kat(S), Alex(B), Zach(B)

Not PIctured: Matt(G),Tim(B), Erin(B), Ian(B), Laura(B), Michelle(B), Tyler(B)

On March 20^th Team 340 and Fairport Team 578 spent the day at the Strong National Museum and participated in the Kids Performing For Kids day. We showed off our FRC and FLL robots to museum goers and had a lot of fun! Special thanks to everyone who was involved in helping to make the event a success.

So, this story is from last season, but I feel it needs to be out there.

Dillan Sayers and I were waiting for Mr. Brunelle to finish helping us mill a part. When the mill was shut down, I became aware of the music loudly blasting from Dillan’s ipod. The artist emanating from his earphones?  Well, the answer surprised us all.

Dillan was listening to Hannah Montana. I hoped that this was a joke, but, when Dillan scrambled to change the song without me saying anything, I realized that my friend has an odd choice of music.

“Dillan! is that Hannah Montana?”  He tried to hide the truth by quickly switching to an AC/DC song instead of answering.  This prompted Mr. Brunelle to burst out laughing as he said “Dillan, is there something you want to tell us?”

For those of you out there who don’t watch Disney channel and don’t have a little sister/daughter, Hannah Montana is also known as Miley Cyrus (I don’t know the details on why, I don’t watch the show or listen to the music or whatever it is).

From now on, Dillan is referred to as Miley.

-As told by Ben Maysick

Congratulations Becca and Team 340 for an outstanding website this year. We sure are living up to our name! Keep up the good work team and let’s show FIRST what we can REALLY do!