Our team is off to a great start this school year!  September was filled with many recruiting and outreach events at Menchville HS and out in our community.  We’re looking forward to getting to know several new student and adult team members as together we prepare for two upcoming off-season competitions.

Triple Helix prepares for IROC
In just 3 weeks, the team will travel to Prince William County in Northern Virginia to compete at the ILITE Robotics Off-Season Challenge (IROC) hosted by our friends and competitors FRC Team 1885.  Triple Helix fans can watch a live stream of the event at ILITE’s YouTube channel.
http://irocoffseason.org/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCWs22DHGwRloB613zOJ9UA

We’ll be playing DESTINATION: DEEP SPACE Presented By The Boeing Company in 2019
The name of the 2019 FIRST Robotics Competition game has been revealed!  Based on the teaser trailer for the game, it appears that our team must launch a mission to escape a weather event on hazardous planet Primus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb1byfe_5TU

Volunteer support needed for Rumble in the Roads 2018
This fall’s Rumble in the Roads will be the high-tech epicenter of the Hampton Roads when it arrives at Heritage High School in Newport News on Saturday, November 3. There’s no event of it’s kind on the Virginia Peninsula– a meeting of 32 high school robotics teams from 3 states for a day of tough competition and high-energy learning. Each alliance of winning teams in this annual offseason scrimmage have gone on to become powerful players in the next FIRST Robotics Competition season.
https://www.rumbleintheroads.com/

Now in its 5th year and expecting 1,500 participants, the Rumble in the Roads is a well-attended youth robotics competition that attracts a unique technical audience from the local community and is an excellent venue for recruiting the next generation of Hampton Roads STEM leaders. The event is free and open to the public and we hope that everyone will come check out the competition!

We need your help to make the event great! We especially need your assistance with event setup on Friday afternoon and evening 11/2/2018, and teardown Saturday evening.

Thank you to sponsors Boeing and the Anthem Foundation
Several Triple Helix partners renewed their sponsorship of the team for the upcoming 2019 FRC season. We thank our mentors and friends at Boeing and Anthem for their generous and continued support!

–
Nate Laverdure
Head coach, Triple Helix Robotics
President, Intentional Innovation Foundation

Welcome back to school!  Here’s your Triple Helix Robotics newsletter for this month!

Inter-team outreach
This month Triple Helix continued a series of visits with two of our FRC competitors.  Blue Cheese, Team 1086, came to Newport News and visited our workshop where we discussed how we rapidly prototype robot mechanisms and build a consensus around a gameplay strategy.  The following weekend, Triple Helix traveled to meet The Zebracorns at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham, NC.  The conversation with Team 900 centered around their cutting-edge software development efforts, their approach to outreach and team sustainability in North Carolina, and our approaches to strategic design and prototyping.  We’ve learned a ton about how these two great teams work and we’re looking forward to doing more of these visits in coming seasons.

Volunteer support needed for Rumble in the Roads 2018
This fall’s Rumble in the Roads will be the high-tech epicenter of the Hampton Roads when it arrives at Heritage High School in Newport News on Saturday, November 3.  There’s no event of it’s kind on the Virginia Peninsula– a meeting of 32 high school robotics teams from 3 states for a day of tough competition and high-energy learning.  Each alliance of winning teams in this annual offseason scrimmage have gone on to become powerful players in the next FIRST Robotics Competition season.

Now in its 5th year and expecting 1,500 participants, the Rumble in the Roads is a well-attended youth robotics competition that attracts a unique technical audience from the local community and is an excellent venue for recruiting the next generation of Hampton Roads STEM leaders.  The event is free and open to the public and we hope that everyone will come check out the competition!

We need your help to make the event great!  Please check out our volunteer application here:
https://www.rumbleintheroads.com/register/volunteer-application

Good luck to our new alumni!
A few months ago, Triple Helix graduated 10 stellar senior students.  As we move into the fall, we’d like to share our best wishes for these new alumni.  We know you’re equipped for the challenges you’ll soon be facing.  Always be iterating– as alum Aaron J put in his winning essay for the Indiana Robotics Invitational technical scholarship, “One of the most important life lessons that Triple Helix has taught me is to be patient in times of failures and how to approach or accept failure as a form of improvement.”  As you learned in your Triple Helix experience, it’s fun to work super hard and accomplish great things as a member of a team.  Good luck this year!

Thank you to sponsors DoD STEM and the Virginia AeroSpace Business Association
Several Triple Helix partners renewed their sponsorship of the team for the upcoming 2019 FRC season. We thank our mentors and friends at the SPAWAR Systems Center – Atlantic, and the DoD STEM funding organization, for their generous and continued support!  In addition, we would like to share our deep appreciation of the Virginia AeroSpace Business Association (VASBA) for increasing their level of support of Triple Helix for the upcoming season.

–
Nate Laverdure
Head coach, Triple Helix Robotics
President, Intentional Innovation Foundation

It’s been an exciting month for Triple Helix Robotics!  Here’s some of the big things that have happened in July:

Indiana Robotics Invitational
Triple Helix traveled to Indianapolis to compete in the IRI, a prestigious and competitive post-season (unofficial) competition for the top teams in the FIRST Robotics Competition. This event is the Pro Bowl of FRC. Competing there among legendary teams was an eye-opening experience for Triple Helix students and mentors, and we’ve been thoroughly inspired to take our program to the next level.  Check out the recap video for the event by IndianaFIRST:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BEqo8uGplo

Inter-team outreach
The team met up with our competitor Blue Cheese, FRC team 1086, at their workshop in Ashland, VA. There, we learned all about their team’s processes: working out of a sponsor’s facility, designing robot parts for outside manufacture, helping to lead the National Advocacy Conference and other political activism, winning a FIRST Championship, and more! This visit was one in a series: this month we’ll host Blue Cheese at our workshop, and we’ll also travel to The Zebracorns at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham, NC.

YMCA STEM fair
Recently graduated seniors, alumni, and former mentors came together to participate in the YMCA STEM fair at the Virginia Air and Space Center in Hampton. YMCA summer camp counselor and recent Triple Helix graduate Rachel B. stated: “My campers and my co workers absolutely LOVED the robot and the team. You guys did an amazing job representing the team at the YMCA STEM fair and I am super happy and proud! Thank you so much again!”

Thank you to Booz Allen Hamilton
Booz Allen has renewed their sponsorship of the team for the upcoming 2019 FRC season. Thank you for your generous and continued support!

–
Nate Laverdure
Head coach, Triple Helix Robotics
President, Intentional Innovation Foundation