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Wissahickon High School’s FIRST Robotics Team took first place in both the Philadelphia Regionals and the New York Regionals. Next, they fly to Atlanta, GA for the world championship.

New York, NY — The Wissahickon FIRST robotics team 341 competes at the Javits Convention Center, New York, NY USA, 12-Mar – 14-Mar-2010.

Wissahickon High School Robot Ramp Riot

High Schools Battle It Out in Arena-Style Competition
Nov. 14th, 2009
8:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Wissahickon High School Gymnasium
Ambler, Pennsylvania 19002

“Ramp Riot draws 36 teams and over 2500 spectators yearly. Every November, those 36 teams (representing up to 8 states) come together to battle it out in arena-style competition.”

Sponsored by FIRST, NASA, Rohm & Haas, Johnson & Johnson, BAE Systems, and Team 341

The Wissahickon High School performed quite well making it to the semi-finals.

Photo Gallery
Video: Robots In Action
Video: The Philly Phanatic at Ramp Riot

Philly Phanatic At Ramp Riot

Atlanta, GA — Shooting pictures of robots at the Georgia Dome.

VIDEOS MP4 / MPEG4 / AVI
Opening Ceremony
Team Introduction
Team Introduction 2
The Drivers Jump
Game Action (rear-view)
Team 341 Miss Daisy Scores
Team 341 Miss Daisy Scores Bigger
View From the Press Box
Robots Zoom Around The Field

Atlanta, GA — The FIRST Robotics championship is taking place at the Georgia Dome. Throughout the event, teams will be given the chance to win awards from a wide variety of categories. There are awards for enthusiasm and awards for ingenuity; however, perhaps… there should be a category that combines enthusiasm and ingenuity. When it comes to this type of achievement nothing shows how the kids use their heads better than the hats they wear. What about a medal for ‘off the top of my head engineering’? Or, maybe, the safest, funnest hat? You know, “You might poke someone’s eye out with that hat!”

Atlanta, GA — What happens when you gather geeks from around the world? Students interested in math and science gathered at the Georgia Dome for the FIRST robotics world championships. From Saudi Arabia to Israel and from Canada to Brazil, the youth traveled to Atlanta. There were over 500 high school teams from 22 countries. What happens when they get together? Well, they proved you do not need negative and positive to conduct electricity. The energy that flowed was 100% positive!

The children started the event with an opening ceremony “pep rally” hosted by some of the brightest adults that can be found. Woody Flowers, Dean Kamen, Bill Miller and executives from NASA, National Instruments and BAE Systems were among the dedicated adults in attendence.

“The US is in one of the biggest experiments in history,” said Woody Flowers. He is strategically obsessed with the economic situation. He believes the students are the most important element of a strategic plan to be rescued from the crisis. “We have a big, stubborn society to change.”

Co-operatition
Not only do the kids get serious hands-on experience with math and science, but they also get an advanced degree in business administration. The adults and students got into graduate level entrepreneurship and Intellectual Property (IP) rights.

The Chairman of the US Patent office announced that Dean Kamen received another patent. Unlike many of his previous patents that were for physical inventions, this patent was for business systems. The business system of co-operatition is how FIRST competitions are run — combining co-operation with competition. As well as receiving the patent, Mr. Kamen was also awarded trademarks for cooperation and gracious professionalism. In a display of gracious professionalism, Mr. Kamen assigned the patent and trademarks to the FIRST organization for $1 a piece.

Exploration
David Lavery, NASA Executive for Solar System Exploration, was awarded and recognized for his contributions as a volunteer. He announced NASA’s collaboration with Google.com on the ability to explore Mars in the same fashion as Google Earth. You can now use the technology to view every NASA image ever returned from Mars.

An astronaut from the upcoming space mission sent a video message declaring, “Let the games begin.” Yes, the robots would be singing “Georgia On My Mind”… if they only had one.

Stay tuned….

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Ambler, PA — Local robotics teams that made the achievement of qualifying for the world championships are in Atlanta, GA. The Wissahickon High School Team 341 “Miss Daisy” obtained many awards this season including first place at the Western Regionals in San Diego, CA.

Team 341 arrived in Atlanta on Wednesday. On Thursday evening, they attended the third annual “Robo Prom”. The Robo Prom is a great way to experience these fierce competitors off the field. The geeks and nerds trade in their pocket protectors for dress slacks or cocktail dresses. Not only are these some of the smartest kids around, they are also courteous, kind and able to dance. And, no… they don’t all dance the robot

On Friday, the competition begins at the Georgia Dome. NASA is providing a live webcast at robotics.nasa.gov.

NASA's Mobile Webcasting

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Ambler, PA — Is there life on Mars? There will be, and it will be Earthlings. At least, that is what the crowd at the Wissahickon High School was informed by Stepehen Davis of the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA).

Mr. Davis is the director of the Ares rocket project. In a presentation in front of the FIRST Robotics Team 341 and the general public, he unveiled for the first time computer animation of the Ares I-X test rocket scheduled to take-off this summer.

The Ares I Ares V Rockets: Image courtesy NASA

There are three rockets that are part of the project — the Ares I-X test rocket, the Ares I manned rocket, and the Ares V cargo rocket.

The space shuttle program will soon be shutting down. The next manned space flight is not expected to launch for five years when the Ares I is complete. This creates a delicate situation. The United States will be dependent on Russia for transporting American astronauts back and forth to the space station. [??????????? ????? ????? ???????? ?? ?????? ??? ??????????????? ???????????? ??????????? ???? ? ??????? ? ??????????? ???????.] Hopefully, relations will warm through the efforts of new U.S. administration. For instance, what would happen if we have men at the space station and Russia attacks Georgia again? There is no immediate solution to this problem; however, Mr. Davis is confident the politics and budgets can be handled to ensure a smooth transition.

The Ares program is scheduled for the test flight of Ares I-X in 2009, the Ares I manned space flight in 2015, the Ares I and Ares V to the moon in 2020, and a manned flight to Mars by 2030.

The Ares I flight in 2015 will re-establish NASA’s ability to shuttle astronauts to the space station. The Ares I and Ares V flights in 2020 are meant to start a space station on the moon. The flight to Mars is independent.

When asked what happens if the Ares I-X test flight fails, Mr. Davis replied, “It would look bad. It would look worse than it really is. We would still learn a lot.” Would there be another test flight before sending humans up? “No, There will be no other tests.”

A lot is riding on the math, science and engineering abilities of the current NASA staff, as well as, the future generation of engineers in the audience. When asked why we are going back to the moon, Mr. Davis gave a good, long list of reasons. Perhaps the best reason was his personal interest — adventure and exploration. That seemed to be the same factor motivating the youth in attendance. Maybe that is exactly what we need to forge the ingenuity necessary to best serve humankind in the years to come.

by Christopher Brouse and Daniel Brouse

Ambler, PA — The Wissahickon FIRST robotics team is from Ambler, PA. They are known as Team 341 and have named their robot Miss Daisy. The team’s battle cry — “Flower Power!” Everyone is welcome to their garden. With ten great years of experience, this has been one of their most successful seasons.

The Wissahickon team recently traveled to San Diego. On the trip, they acquired some very impressive trophies. The Judge’s Award was achieved in large part for aiding a Brazilian team. The South American robot had accidentally been shipped to Memphis, Tennessee. Several members of the Wissahickon team, along with help from a few other teams, assisted the Brazilians in successfully building a machine “on-the-spot.” Though it normally takes weeks for a build season, the robot was able to hold 7th place out of 46 teams.

The Wissahickon team was even more fortunate by winning first place in the overall competition against one of the best machines in the world — a team sponsored by NASA and supported by NASA engineers. Miss Daisy took the stadium by storm by making one of the biggest robotic upsets in FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) history. It would also appear that Team 341 was the first East Coast team to ever win the Western Regional. (Read more about the San Diego competition at http://membrane.com/robotics/San-Diego.html)

The MC Announces Miss Daisy in Philly

In March, at the Philadelphia Regional, Team 341 achieved one of the most honored awards, Engineering Inspiration. Not only do the members try to have a highly inspired team, they also try to spread the inspiration to young and old… both far and wide.

Next, the team travels to compete at the World Championship event in Atlanta, GA, April 16, 17 and 18.

The Wissahickon website also won first place at the San Diego event. It is a great place to learn more about FIRST and Miss Daisy. You can check it out at www.team341.com.

For more information on robotics, visit http://membrane.com/robotics/.

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[Christopher Brouse is the team captain and has been the mechanical build team captain for the past three years.]