Budget: 2021-2022
Intentional Innovation Foundation, the operating sponsor of Triple Helix Robotics, publishes this detailed look at the organization’s approved budget for the July 2021 – June 2022 fiscal year.
Year: 2021
Circular gimbal mask for Radiomaster TX16S
This 3d printable plate replaces a stock part and limits joystick inputs to a circular shape (1= x2 + y2). The mask works on both right and left sticks. The pictured example was printed from PETG with supports at 0.1mm layer height and 30% infill.
Newsletter: Triple Helix Robotics annual report
With just 2 months to go until kickoff of the 2022 FIRST Robotics Competition, we look back on a year that– despite its hardships– was also full of improbable victories.
Intentional Innovation Foundation, the nonprofit operating sponsor for Menchville High School’s Triple Helix Robotics team, has published our annual report for the July 2020 – June 2021 fiscal year.
The report captures the many stellar recent accomplishments of our flagship competitive youth STEM program:
- We developed a FPV quadcopter build-fly-compete challenge and provided kits to 21+ participants
- We competed in FIRST’s Infinite Recharge at Home series of challenges and posted the best scores in the Virginia/Maryland/DC region
- We presented the graduate-level techniques we’ve used to generate and follow time-optimized 2D paths
Triple Helix appreciates our gracious sponsors who make our award-winning program possible, and we look forward to an even more impressive 2022!
Join our team – Donate – Donate in-kind
–
Nate Laverdure
President, Intentional Innovation Foundation
Head coach, Triple Helix Robotics
2020-2021 Annual Report
Intentional Innovation Foundation, the operating nonprofit sponsor of Triple Helix Robotics, is proud to present our Annual Report for the organization’s 2020-2021 fiscal year.
Message from IIF on equal educational opportunities for transgender students
Triple Helix head coach Nate Laverdure sent the following message on behalf of the Intentional Innovation Foundation Board of Directors.
Intentional Innovation Foundation, the nonprofit operating sponsor of Triple Helix Robotics, strives to provide a safe, affirming, and professional environment for learners to explore tough, exciting problems in STEM.
We are disappointed by Tuesday’s [August 17, 2021] vote of the Newport News School Board to reject proposed revisions to Policy JB, Equal Educational Opportunities, which would have expanded the district’s existing anti-discrimination protection to the reasons of gender and gender identity. This change would have also enabled schools to implement policies consistent with the Virginia Department of Education’s “Model Policies for the Treatment of Transgender Students in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools” as required by law.
Adopting the proposed policy changes will make the school environment more reflective of the professional working environments of our employers and sponsors. This environment is one where contributions to the team matter more than identity based discriminatory factors, and it is an environment which we seek to provide to our participants. Adopting the policy changes enhances our ability to provide, at no cost to Newport News Public Schools, the high-energy competition robotics experiences which inspire our young people to become science and technology leaders.
Intentional Innovation Foundation advocates for the passage, without delay, of the proposed revisions to the Equal Educational Opportunities policy at the next Special Meeting of the Newport News School Board scheduled for Thursday, August 26, 2021, at 5 p.m. in the School Administration Building.
Nate Laverdure
President, Intentional Innovation Foundation
Head coach, Triple Helix Robotics
QA – Hosting an Offseason Event
In this document, we answer some great questions recently posed to us about hosting an FRC offseason competition. Triple Helix Robotics co-hosts the Rumble in the Roads, an annual FRC offseason tournament. The event has been held at a high school in Newport News, VA from 2014 to 2019.
Electronics workbench upgrade
During June 2021, Triple Helix Robotics overhauled our electronics workbench in our fabrication shop
at Menchville High School.
Be a mentor for Triple Helix Robotics!
Triple Helix Robotics is seeking mentors to help us level up our program!
Triple Helix is located in industrial Newport News, Virginia, a city where real people make real things. Ships, space vehicles, fuel injectors, photocopiers, particle accelerators– these things are conceived, built, and improved by rockstar designers, engineers, scientists, and technicians who live and work in our hometown. Our team aims to create the STEM experiences that transform students into these future rockstars.
Our team is distinguished by our two major passions: the iterative engineering design process, and good documentation. Together these two interests make us a constant and effective force in building a stronger youth STEM competition community. Our Peninsula STEM Gym, as well as the pre-season scrimmage event we run with partner teams 1610 and 5957, both provide unique opportunities for local teams to iterate on their solutions so they can be at their strongest at competition.
Our mentoring philosophies
Our team is relatively small, but our mission is large. Our core belief is that the most powerful way to engage our students in STEM is to provide a safe environment where they can experience complex problems in the form of a thrilling, challenging competition. We see our mentors as equal partners with our students as together we co-investigate those tough problems, forming awesome relationships along the way.
Desired areas of expertise
New Triple Helix mentors are not expected to know how to design and build an FRC robot– we can teach that! However, we are aiming to recruit mentors with the following expertise.
Math and physics
- Multivariable calculus
- Linear algebra
- Ordinary differential equations
- Classical mechanics
Control theory
- Modeling of dynamic systems
- Control of underactuated systems
- Model predictive control (MPC)
- Statistic filtering techniques (e.g. Kalman filtering)
Engineering and design
- Mechatronics
- 3D CAD (we primarily use PTC Creo and Onshape)
- 2D and 2.5D CAM
Additional focus areas
- Web development
- Graphic design
- Project management
- Technical writing
- Marketing
If this sounds like a group that you would like to join, please reach out to us at contact@team2363.org. Come build real cool stuff with us!
Newsletter: Triple Helix completes all the “Infinite Recharge @ Home” Skills Challenges
Throughout the spring, Triple Helix students and mentors used socially-distanced and virtual meeting spaces to compete in Infinite Recharge at Home, a set of skills challenges laid out by FIRST in lieu of traditional tournaments.
We are proud to announce that after one last late night at the Peninsula STEM Gym, we’ve wrapped up our submissions and sent them in to FIRST!
Because of our hard work, our results are among the best in the world. We currently stand [1] at 4th place in our randomly-assigned group of 29 teams, just behind teams from Seattle, Long Island, and Windsor Locks CT. We’re also currently [2] the highest-ranked Virginia team, and somewhere in the top 50 out of all 1100+ teams competing.
These results are quite spectacular, especially considering that we’ve done our work completely openly, updating our youtube channel every time we have a new “best to date” score to share. You can find all the materials we submitted to FIRST– a presentation about the software development work we’ve done, a flyer about our robot, and much more– at our publications site team2363.org/publications.
Thanks to all the participating students and mentors, and everyone who helped us do such great work during a weird time– especially the parents and our sponsors! We look forward to an upcoming FIRST Chesapeake award ceremony on May 4, and a restful offseason full of…
- Competition with our FPV quadcopters
- software development leveraging what we have learned through these skills challenges
- Recruiting new students and mentors to our team
- Reopening our Menchville HS workshop for business as usual as soon as we can!
Nate
[1] Official scores and rankings will be available from FIRST on April 23.
[2] These are unofficial rankings taken ahead of this afternoon’s submittal deadline.
Infinite Recharge @ Home interview presentation
In this presentation to the judges for the Infinite Recharge @ Home challenge, Triple Helix students emphasize the team’s work over the past two years to grow our trajectory-generating and path-following capabilities. The Infinite Recharge @ Home challenge was a part of the 2021 FIRST Robotics Competition.