Similar to professional engineering firms, we have a wide variety of work besides building the robot. To work efficiently in these areas, our team is divided into subteams. Subteams allow students to work and learn in areas unique to their interests. They also give students more specific responsibilities and more integral roles on our team.
Students spend a majority of their time collaborating within their subteam. Subteam leads delegate tasks and ensure everything is finished on time. At the beginning and end of each meeting, the leads report to the whole team what their subteam accomplished and share specific future objectives. This keeps the team organized and cohesive as a whole.
Mechanical/Design
This subteam is responsible for designing and manufacturing the robot. First, the robot design is drawn in SolidWorks Student; every component is completely drawn before any manufacturing takes place. Students are then assigned work on specific areas such as drive, chassis, pickup and the lift. A system similar to Microsoft Azure is used with a whiteboard and sticky notes to efficiently display the work that’s been done and work in progress. Our robot is 100% student designed and built, giving those working in this subteam working knowledge of engineering concepts that they can only hear about in classrooms.
*Mechanical Lead: Grant
**Design Lead: Siddhant
Controls
This subteam is in charge of the placement and wiring of the controls system on the robot. Controls works with other subteams to ensure that all aspects of the control system are protected and that appropriate provisions are made for manipulators, motors and other devices. They draw a wiring diagram of the robot to allow for rapid repairs and ensure proper operation of the robot when it is powered on.
*Controls Lead: Alex
Programming
The Programming subteam is responsible for programming the robot so that it is controllable via an OI (Operator Interface), although occasionally the challenge calls for other methods. This subteam is also responsible for creating code for each year’s autonomous challenge. Programming works closely with controls to ensure that everything is wired properly when adding sensors, switches, and other components.
*Programming Lead: Andrew
Safety
This subteam organizes the safety training of all team members and creates machine-specific safety tests and a general shop safety test that must be passed with 100% accuracy. CORE has won 15 awards for its safety program, which this subteam creates and runs. This subteam provides safety demonstrations and informs the team about industry standards like Lock-Out-Tag-Out (LOTO), Safety Data Sheets (SDS) and 5 S’s of Safety. This year’s safety handbook, as well as other documents, are available on the Safety page.
*Safety Committee: Ryan, Siddhant, Matthew
Outreach
The Outreach subteam portrays our team to the community in a professional matter. This includes running social media accounts, making blog posts on our website, coordinating our team’s robot demonstrations at local events such as the Waukesha County Fair, Wisconsin State Fair and Summerfest. Outreach also uses photos and words to capture the team in action during build and competition season, sharing what our team’s progress is to our sponsors. This subteam is integral in fundraising by contacting businesses through letters, emails and phone calls to inform them about CORE and the FIRST message. During competition season, Outreach prepares the documents for award submissions. Read more about the whole team’s work on the Outreach page.
*Outreach Lead: Juan
Scoutegy
This subteam, a portmanteau of ‘Scouting’ and ‘Strategy’ is responsible for data collection, input and analysis at tournaments. Scoutegy becomes an active subteam shortly before and during the competition season. With game changes, Scoutegy must determine what new kinds of data to collect. Beyond the creation of the scouting database, this subteam is in charge of the directing team-wide scouting efforts in the stands at competitions. Scouting may also include analyzing videos, browsing teams’ websites and monitoring robotics forums. The ultimate purpose of Scoutegy is to be able to make well informed decisions during the competition and alliance selection process, In the spirit of gracious professionalism we also share this extensive scouting database with other teams at competition.
*Scoutagy Lead: Liam
Drive
The Drive subteam practices maneuvering the robot to be able to score. The robot is controlled by 2 students, one who moves the robot around the field, and the other student moves the parts on the robot which help it to score. The drive subteam practices constantly to operate the robot to perfection. Without the drive subteam, the robot would not be able to compete.
