On Saturday, March 11th, and Sunday, March 12th, the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) Team 6004 f(x) Robotics competed at Rolesville High School, following a tournament at UNC Asheville the weekend before. At UNC Asheville, the team concluded the tournament ranking 7th out of 29 teams and won the “Imagery” Award in recognition of their “attractiveness in engineering and outstanding visual aesthetic integration of machine and team appearance,” as detailed on the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) website.
At Rolesville High School, Team 6004 f(x) Robotics won the “Excellence in Engineering” award. The award, as described on the FIRST website,“celebrates the team that demonstrates a professional approach to the design process.”
FRC is a robotics-based competition where teams are challenged to build an industrial-sized robot to compete in an alliance with two other teams. Teams gain skills in STEM, engineering, design, marketing, communication, and business. f(x) Robotics is based out of Smithfield-Selma High School and was founded in 2015. This is their 8th competition season as a team.
This year, Team 6004 partnered with their host school’s Project Lead the Way (PLTW) to in-house fabricate most of the components of their robot. Main structural parts and supports were milled with a CNC machine and smaller components like brackets and clips were 3D printed in orange Polylactic Acid (PLA) printing filament.
The team completely modeled their robot in Onshape and finished a detailed,engineering notebook that documents the process of designing their robot from brainstorming to prototype to the final product. It was the implementation of these engineering and design methods in partnership with their school that led to f(x) winning the award.
Those interested in learning more about FRC Team 6004, f(x) Robotics, email frc.team6004.robotics@gmail.com or visit their website at frc6004.com.
Congratulations to the FRC Team 6004, f(x) Robotics!! Well done!