Information & Dates (Tentative)

Start Date: October 7th, 2020 4pm - 5pm, Online meeting                                                                  

Meeting Times: Wednesdays 4pm - 5pm, Online meetings during remote learning (10/07, 10/14, 10/21, 10/28, 11/04, 11/18, 12/02, 12/09, 12/16)

Special Events:

• Interest/Info Meeting - 9/16/2020 Slides
• Registration Due Date - 9/30/2020
• First Official Meeting - 10/07/2020
• Regular Meetings - Every Wednesdays (10/07/2020 - 12/16/2020)
• Evergreen Eagle League - TBD
• Evergreen Eagle Tournament - TBD
• State VIQ Championship Tournament: TBD
• VEX Worlds - 04/27/2021 - 04/29/2021

Cost: $40 per student club fee, see below for additional costs. 

Contact: robotics@evergreenptsa.org

Co-Chairs: Wei Luo and Vijay Bharadwaj

Competitions in 2020-2021

This year is clearly not going to be a typical season. The World Championship is still planned to be run at the same time (though in Dallas, Texas rather than Louisville, Kentucky) but Pacific Northwest regionals appear to be running about 2 months later than usual.

Furthermore, guidelines on this season's competitions include:

• An emphasis on less travel
• More invitation-only events

• Socially-distanced events

• Skills-only tournaments – remote or in-person with 1 driver (Guide)
• Remote judging (Rules)

• Rule changes to ease remote competition

• Digital Engineering Notebook (must print for in-person events)
• More online challenges

This season's timeline expectations:

• Most regionals: January-February
• State: March?

• Worlds: End of April

How Robotics Works

The Evergreen Middle School PTSA runs a Robotics Club for all students grade 6-8. This is a competitive club in which students learn about robotics concepts and builds a robot to compete in the VEX IQ Global Challenge. Teams are composed of 3-5 students and at least one parent coach. Weekly meetings are held at school or online, and students are encouraged to take their robotics kits home between meetings to work on their robots.

Competitions are organized by REC Foundation

• 2020-2021 VEX IQ Challenge

• Rubrics and Tournament Information

• REC Foundation Restart Guide Under Covid-19
• REC Foundation YouTube channel- e.g. Tuesday Tech Talks playlist
• WA VEX IQ events list (on robotevents.com)

Hardware and software are supplied by VEX Robotics

• VEX Robotics YouTube channel
• Discussion forums

Team Commitments

Robotics is a competitive club and thus requires non-trivial commitment in terms of time and effort. Additionally, please remember that robotics is student-centered team-based activity. To be a proactive team player and to have the best experience in this activity, please think carefully about your capacity to commit to robotics activities before signing up.

Commitments include:

• Attendance of school/online meetings
• 1-2 hours of work outside of school per week (per each team's discretion)
• 1 parent coach to manage the team (each team should have a coach to advise technically and organize all team activities); coaches must be prepared to:
• Coordinate between parents, students and club chairs
• Register the team online and manages school club and tournament fees and travel
• Organize and supervise out-of-school meetings
• Be responsible for the team and the team conduct outside the school and at tournament events
• Follow the Student-Centered Policy released by REC Foundation. 
• Be a PTSA member (join here) and LWSD approved volunteer
• Follow all school and PTSA policies
• Participation in 1 Evergreen Eagle League at EMS
• Participation in 1 Evergreen Eagle tournament at EMS (other tournaments are available but optional)
• Potential travel to state competition or even world competition based on qualification

Expenses

• $40 Robotics club fee per student (covers parts within the kit)
• Additional parts may be required depending on each team’s project status (e.g., broken parts, additional sensors, etc.) Any additional costs incurred should be discussed and covered within a team.
• $100 per team one-time registration fee to enter the VEX IQ Competition
• $40 - $50 per team per tournament registration fee (to be paid when registering the team online for the tournaments later in the year)
• There may be more expenses for state and world competitions if teams qualify!

Club Meetings

Topics covered during club meetings include:

• Structural design
• Engineering notebook
• Gearing basics
• Programming (Blockly, RobotC)
• Tournament strategy and problem-solving
• *New for this year* SnapCAD: virtual robot design and construction
• *New for this year* VEXcode VR: virtual robot coding

Club Meeting Materials:

• Personal Computer (not school-issued computer)
• Zoom
• SnapCAD installed

Our club meetings will be taught by a team of high schoolers, all of whom have many years of both VEX IQ and VRC experience, and whom have qualified and won awards numerous times at the VEX World Championships.

Following official club meetings, these high schoolers will be available for Q&A by email.

1. Form a team of 3-5 students (Club advisors do not form teams and do not force students onto other teams).
2. Find a parent/guardian willing to be your coach.
3. Decide on a team name.
4. Use this link to enter the team's information (by team coach only).
5. Complete the permission slip (here) (each student) and submit it to the coach. Coach collects all slips and submits them to robotics@evergreenptsa.org. 
6. Pay the Robotics Club registration fee (each student), found here.
7. Upon receipt of all team members' payments & permission slips, each team will be given a date and a time to pick up your robotics kit!

All steps must be completed by the end of September. Because of the volume of students, this will be a hard date, submissions after this date will not be accepted!

*New for this year* A spreadsheet has been created to assist in the self-formation of teams, which will include contact information of all students unable to form a team and teams looking for additional members; if this applies to your student, please first pay the Robotics Club registration fee here, then contact the club chairs at robotics@evergreenptsa.org for the spreadsheet link. If your student is unable to form/find a team by the end of September, or if the club has already reached its capacity, the registration fee will be fully refunded.

Stay Connected *New for this year*

Want to stay connected with what's happening at Robotics Club, help your student to find a team, post technical questions, look for another team to do scrimmage, etc?

Tap into a network of EMS Robotics parents   Connect! EMS Robotics Facebook.

For more information and to be added to our distribution list please email Club chairs at robotics@evergreenptsa.org.

2019-2020 Accomplishments

Registration Numbers: 75 students; 17 teams 

Tournaments Participated: 11 

Tournament Awards: 13 

State Qualifing Teams: 4 (47B, 47C, 47D and 47R) 

Online Worlds Celebration Participating Teams: 47C and 47D 

• 47C: Amanda Huang, Katelynn He and Soha Khan 
• 47D: Alex Chen, Boya Zhang, Gary Fu, Leo Wang and Winston Zhou