Latest News
Do you need to know what's going on with our team? Then wonder no more, for our Latest News pages will keep you up to date on all of our major team events, competitions, fundraisers, and more! In addition, we'll often announce new updates to our website, as well as interesting new content here was well.
And keeping up with our Latest News has never been easier; now with RSS feeds available for our Latest News you can be sure you'll be the first to know!
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An 'Eventful' End to the Build Season
February 21, 2006The one day of the year that can strike fear in a FIRSTer - the infamous ship date. It is on this predestined date that all FIRST teams have to have their robot shipped from their workplace to a warehouse until their first regional, to allow for equal build time among teams. After having successfully testing various robot components the day before, some last minute parts were still being made. But as the three o'clock deadline approached, the robot had to be shipped up, and all the small things left to do would be finished at the regionals. Do to an unfortunate miscommunication between FedEx and out team, a pickup of our robot was never scheduled, and the FedEx truck that would pick up the robot never came. After finding this out at seven in the evening, it was a mad dash to get our robot to the main FedEx Distribution Center to get it shipped on the 21st, or else we would be disqualified for not shipping in time. For the entire story of The Day FedEx Forgot Gus, please see the following link.
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Introducing the New 2006 FRC Game: Aim High!
January 7, 2006Earlier today, thousands of people worldwide tuned in to the official FIRST Kickoff event to watch FIRST release the new 2006 FIRST Robotics Competition game. Being broadcasted live around the world via NASA TV and streaming video on the Internet, this event kicks off the 2006 FIRST Robotics Competition game. This new game for the 2006 season in called Aim High. The objective of the game is to score as many of your balls into your goals by either throwing them into lower corner goals, or having the robot shoot them into the high center goal. For more rules of this year's game, please see the Aim High Game Manual.
Related links:
›› http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/doc_updt.htm
›› Aim High Game Animation
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2006 Official Game Clue!
December 23, 2005Today, FIRST released their traditional pre-Kickoff game clue. Each year, FIRST releases a clue about their upcoming game, to get everyone "thinking out of the box" before Kickoff even arrives. Although the clue may have not explain everything about our new game, it usually contains clues about certain parts of it. Here is the official clue from FIRST:
five 'bots tangling with pasta
a game piece obsessed with a shovel's show
and seeing Montana's green heights
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Bash at the Beach!
October 8, 2005Bash at the Beach, the last competition of the year for Team 228 ended with a bang. Bash at the Beach, whose Hawaiian Party atmosphere was not dampened by the rain, was also the first competition for many of our team's new members. At Bash at the Beach, Team 228 ranked in 3rd place, had 9 wins and 5 losses, and ended as semifinalists. Even though a sprocket broke on our arm in one match, and a chain broke during another match, we quickly fabricated fixes and sprang back. See the following links for more information.
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2006 Vex Game Released
October 7, 2005Today, the 2006 FIRST Vex Challenge game has been released. The game, which is called "Half-Pipe Hustle", is played on a 10' by 14' playing field. The point of the game is to score balls into one of five goals: four corner goals and one center goal. If an alliance owns a goal (by having more balls in it), they receive a bonus score. There will be separate autonomous and human-controlled matches; these matches are will last 30 seconds and 2 minutes respectively. For more information see the following links:
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BattleCry6 @ WPI!
June 18, 2005BattleCry6, the latest of the 2005 season competitions for Gus Robotics can be accurately described as a bittersweet competition. Despite ranking fourth in the qualification rounds, including scoring the second highest score ever this year with 129 points (thanks to teams 40 and 121), our robot also suffered its worst damage yet this year. However, during the quarter finals, Gus was tipped over. While we were trying to right ourselves, another robot rammed us shattering the sprocket that powers our arm. For most offensive teams, the loss of their arm could spell disaster. But not for Gus. In less than five minutes between the matches, we totally dismantled the arm assembly and became a defensive robot. The lack of our arm did not stop our alliance from making it into the semifinals. Thanks Buzz Team 175 and Chaos Team 131 for your great job during the elimination rounds! Pictures from the event can be found in the Event Pictures pages.
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New Website Look!
June 10, 2005Throughout the past six months, this website has undergone many changes and updates. The main focus so far has been getting content online - since nothing on this site existed six months ago. But now that everything is online, everything is now being redone - handcoded - to W3C standards for XHTML and CSS. Also, I have begun to phase out the tables that were being used for the layout, using DIV tags instead. Why? Tables were designed to display data in an even orderly pattern, not to be the layout tool for websites. By handcoding this now, the page content loads faster, displays better in a wider range of browsers and screen sizes, and the file size has been reduced nearly 25%. If you would like to compare the new website look, the see this link for the old home page.
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Beantown Blitz 2005
May 22, 2005Exactly one month after the 2005 Championships, Gus Robotics attended their first post-season event of 2005. At Beantown Blitz, which is hosted by Northeastern University, Gus did very well in the qualification rounds with four wins and one loss, ending in the 9th seed. After being selected by the 5th alliance (Team 125, The NUTRONS), Teams 125, 228, and 222 (The Tigertrons) competed hard in the elimination rounds until a 2 point loss to the 4th alliance (Teams 69, 126, 1071) left Gus as Quarterfinalists. Thanks to teams 125 and 222 for their hard work! See this link for EventPictures.
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2005 Championships!
April 25, 2005
Weeks upon weeks preparing for the Championship Event have come and gone. Here it is, the biggest event of the entire year for FIRST, the Super Bowl for Smarts. Here 341 teams from all around the U.S. and the world converged upon Atlanta, Georgia in an ultimate showdown to see who will be crowned the National Champion for the next year. After two days of competition, Gus Robotics was ranked 14th in Archimedes Division out of 85 teams with a 5-2 win/loss record on Saturday. Sadly, we were not picked for an alliance in the playoffs, but that did not stop our team from having a great time. For match videos, results, and pictures, please see our 2005 Championship Page. If you have any pictures or videos of our team that you would like posted on our website, please email them to our webmaster.
Related links:
›› NASA Championship Event Live Webcast
›› FRC Championship Event - Event Summary
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Championship Divisions
April 11, 2005Today, FIRST released the divisions for the 2005 Championship Event in Atlanta - and Gus Robotics Team 228 is in Archimedes! This will prove to be an exciting division, especially with teams 71, 79, 173, 179, 191, 217, 233, 342, 435, 494, 845, 1251, as well as GUS and our sister team, 1071 Max. For more information, see the our 2005 Championship page.
Related links:
›› Archimedes Division
›› Curie Division
›› Newton Division
›› Galileo Division
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About Gus
Gus Robotics Team 228 was founded in 1999 to bring the excitement and inspiration of the FIRST Robotics Competition to the three Meriden High Schools. Since then, our team has grown to include over twenty students from the three high schools.