Two weeks ago C.O.R.E. was in St. Louis, competing at the Championship level. Although it is always an honer to compete alongside teams from across the globe, it was a little humbling. All in all, we were the 65 ranked team in our division of a hundred. This gives us something to work for. As Dale Carnegie once said “Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success”. On a different note, the St. Louis experience was quite enjoyable. We thank the parents, mentors, and sponsors who make trips like this possible. Lastly, congratulations to all of the teams that made it to Einstein, the final field of play, as well as everyone that competed.

All FIRST competitions are broadcasted live. To view the the matches here are some websites: http://theredalliance.com/livefeeds.html (red alliance), http://www.thebluealliance.com/gameday (blue alliance), http://watchfirstnow.com/live.php (general).

C.O.R.E. 2062 is in the Currie division.

With the FIRST Championship less than a week away, C.O.R.E. 2062 is finalizing our pre-Championship preparations. Æther,our robot, has got its new blocker in place and has been fixed up since its last competition. In addition, our improved hopper is in order to not give us any problems. Also, for the tournament, we have prepared safety demos as well as lock out tag out kits that we are going to give to other teams. Soon we will be packing everything away, only to see it later in the city of St. Louis.

It has been a week of great work for C.O.R.E., with us modifying our robot with a new blocker as well as a redesigned hopper. The Chairman’s team is working to set up new programs to reach out to the community. Take notice for the upcoming weeks as we expand outwards!

At the competition in Milwaukee on March 21-23, C.O.R.E. 2062 made it to the semi-finals. After starting off alliance selection in the 10^th seed, we eventually joined ranks with the 6th seeded alliance captain team 1259, Paradigm Shift, and team 2574, Robohuskies. 1259’s climber and 2574’s fantastic shooter led to an awesome finish in the Semi-finals. In addition, one of our members, Haley, was honored to become a FIRST Dean’s List Finalist, an award given at each regional to one student who was recommended by their mentors for excellence on the team. We won the Judges Award, which recognizes greatness of the team overall. It shows distinction in categories such as Safety, Outreach, and Gracious Professionalism. Excellence in Milwaukee is attributed to the diligent fixing of mechanical problems, dedicated drivers, careful scouting, and well-versed Chairmen’s representatives. Our competition spirit will continue on to the FIRST championship in St. Louis, Missouri on April 23-26 for the Championship Competition.

With the Milwaukee regional coming up the mechanical subteam is making some changes in the design of Æther. This is all very top secret. A special notion goes to the Chairman’s members that are working on their award presentation, as they have been working hard for the past week. In addition, Scoutagy is planning how scouting in Milwaukee will work out. Most of the team will be pitching in on this front.

C.O.R.E. recently attended the Lake Superior Regional in Duluth, MN and has come back with some very exciting news! With help from team 2052 (Knightkrawler) and 4011 (Pi Robotics) we won the regional, which gets us to Internationals! Our team had fantastic offense, scoring over 100 points on just about every match against other high-scoring alliances. Our seventh-seeded alliance had a very worthy opponent in the high-scoring eighth-seeded alliance of team 3276 (NSR), 3277 (ProDigi), and 4539 (KAOTIC Robotics). We also won the UL Industrial Safety Award, adding to our safety accomplishments! Finally, after winning the regional, we faced off against the Northern Lights winners, who were just on the other side of the arena in a match for the Duluth FIRST champion! We emerged victorious against the fantastic alliance of 2169 (KING TeC), 3061 (Huskie Robotics), and team 525 (Swartdogs) in a very close 116-113 match. This was a fantastic regional for C.O.R.E. and we are excited for Milwaukee!

As Duluth approaches very quickly, our robot has moved out of the hands of mechanical team and into programming. They have been working over in the area of the auto shop designated “the programming lounge”. Pre-competition scouting has begun and scoutagy has finally nailed down the scouting sheets. Chairman’s have printed out all of the robot spec sheets, and we are very excited for Duluth! Good luck to all teams competing!

Dear Diary,
As competition nears ever-closer, the team has started working as hard as possible, keeping us afloat. Our new modified climber is being tweaked, and our second tilter is done and attached! The tilter’s job is to position the robot at the same angle as the pyramid before climbing. We used extra man power to accomplish these difficult tasks. Our traveling team is almost decided, and soon we will be packing up to head off to Duluth!

As part of Rockwell Automation’s engineering week Rockwell Automation had a day for the organizations that they sponsor as well as for their employees to show of their patents. On Feburary 20 C.O.R.E. attended and had the opportunity to present about FIRST to Rockwell’s employees and employee families. Team members showed off our robot from Rebound Rumble, last year’s game, and even explained it in detail to some technically enthusiastic employees. With there being a FLL and a FTC team in attendance all of FIRST was represented. The dinner at the event was great and there were even some activities for kids. It was fun to attend.