Livonia Warriors & Tyros Robotics

Even with the 2024 Season completed, the Warriors and Tyros have still been up to a few things as they continue to make an impact in the community -- not least of which includes a visit not but a month and a half after her Lieutenant Governor was just across the street at the Livonia Competition. Governor Gretchen Whitmer visited the Livonia Career and Technical Center and visited the robotics center as reported in the article below.

In addition two of the Livonia FLL teams did not participate in the 2023-2024 season. It was a lot of work to get them going. Working up towards their first competition for their season even after the closing buzzer of the main season sounded. Both the Niji Iro RoboCranes and the Webster RoboCats got a late start. Plus with the main FRC season completed students were able to help mentor students based on their experience.

But it wouldn't be a full regular season without a visit to the Livonia City Council with the team’s robots and a report on our season for both teams.

While concluding this competition season, the team took time to look back as it was a precedent setting season. Especially for the Livonia Warriors, they won two first time awards, the Engineering Inspiration Award and Sustainability Award. These awards point this team towards long term success. In addition the Tyros held an old Livonia standard bringing home two Imagery Awards one for each competition. Still the team would like to pay recognition to all of their graduating seniors:

Stephen Alward from Churchill High School with the Blood, Sweat and Cheers Award. While mainly acting as a mechanical student he was willing to pick up the camera at competition and cheer on his team but is always wanting to stay in the game. Dedicated to helping his team bloody nose aside.

Malhar Khisty from Churchill High School with the Mover & Shaker Award. Starting off in FTC as an amazing presenter and after some time away from FIRST he came back and while none of that presenter shine dulled he never went for the awards team and instead pushed forwards in programming and computer science.

Pradahm Kuchipudi from Churchill High School with the Careful & Focused Award. The careful focused base to the ambitious but wonderful Malhar. Pradahm also started out in FTC as a good presenter but in coming into FRC took a slow and steady approach keeping programming focused and grounded while still reaching for improvement.

Sam Moore from Churchill High School with the Troubleshooter Rare Award. No matter how careful, or practiced with ambition and variety, sometimes what is needed at the end of the day is an honest opinion, which can make someone realize they didn't uncapitalize that variable. In his own words "That trajectory is not going to make it and that cannot be fixed in the code".

Rebecca Fitch from Stevenson High School with the Warrior Proud Award. The spirited leader and spearhead of the Warriors Impact Award squad. She doesn't go charging ahead though she is a careful and considerate and puts that spirit into forging ahead even when the Impact essay character count is too high and the time is at a low. She will double check the numbers until everyone is right and as Warriors awards team lead she will go down in our history books for winning the team the first Engineering Inspiration award for the team.

Aryan Patel from Churchill High School with the Natural Born Leader Award. For the first time in FIRST in Michigan history a Youth Advisory Council was formed and when asked for a representative the best choice for a role so not only was this outstanding student well spoken but willing to take up the slightly historic burden of being on the first Youth Advisory Council for FIRST in Michigan.

Stavros Boguslawski from Stevenson High School with the Family, Team & Tunes Award. Although many of his team members may have messed up the pronunciation of his name he never missed mechanical beat especially when it came time for our home competition. Not only did he and his family help keep the tunes coming the whole competition but when needed even stepped in as a game announcer. Keeping the beat on two robots can be hard, four complex, but to throw a rookie announcer in with six robots is almost impossible but he managed it all.

Joseph Kaouk from Churchill High School with the Helping Hand Award. It didn't take this mechanical master too much more than a tool in his hand and a robot with a mechanical demand at the Livonia Event and he was there, a helpful Joe about the gym. All under the capped head of a rookie to boot, so all of that to say from the rest of the team ,we hope it was interesting.

Jaden Reji from Churchill High School with the Above and Beyond Award. While a programmer on the team when it came to the home competition his skill at running the setup program seemed unsurpassed. All to the point that when it was the point to appoint a second in command the field supervisor picked him not only for erecting the walls but keeping all the lines tidy and in order.

Milan Sridar from Stevenson High School with the Excellence Award. When others turned in and totally away from the world in the first totally isolated season he looked out. On all the possibilities a blank slate full of possibility and helped design the virtual game, a challenge for a student who had only worked with FTC before. Out of isolation the field's design and robot's dances across it would change the way he worked around the field.

Jayden Nolte from Churchill High School with the Driver Strong Award. From almost beginning to end of his FIRST Robotics Career he was a driver dredging from the depths of Rapid React "The Flying Dutchman". Then charging forward with Green Lightning in Charged Up ,and then finally bringing up the volume with Crystal Jukebox in Crescendo.

Hayden Yesko from Stevenson High School with the Operator Extraordinaire Award. This long haired gentleman may often be too soft-spoken to hear but his laugh and natural aptitude to pick up the controls of most robots and master them will speak volumes louder about him. Each mechanism is a miniature masterpiece of machinery. His work is unmistakable and it's one thing to drive but when every precise precision placement is up to one person ,one must make it count.

As if by channeling the waves, beneath their yellow submarine Tyros inadvertently burnt a good name for next year's theme in theory the first water game season. Not literally so far as we know but how technology interacts with the ocean. In FIRST’s words “During the 2024-2025 FIRST season, FIRST ® Dive… teams will use their STEM and collaboration skills to explore life beneath the surface of the ocean”. But as earlier parts of the article talk about underneath the water is actually one of the most complex ecosystems and in theory can tell us more about life on other planets as we look for other planets that might be able to host life and an ecosystem that affects all of us.

The first ever FIRST Lego League Event at the Livonia Tech Center and while it certainly wasn't a Masterpiece as the game name entails it really epitomizes the quote by Robert Frost, "Any work of art must first of all tell a story". Starting out of the gate while judges and referees were trained almost everyone else's positions were up in the air and often shifting as needed. After some set up and some frantic printing Amanda Gerstenbrand took over as the Master of Ceremonies. So off teams went to judging one at at time.

While the teams went to the judges for their presentations all others not in judging got to work testing and refining their programs. All the while, the volunteers did another quick study up and some more printing to get all the scoring sheets they would need, some last minute studying up on some rules and questions took place.

After lunch the matches kicked off. Each team competed in three matches to achieve their best score and each team had it's standout qualities. For Automation try none other than #64420 DinoBytes in one continuous program they would work their way from the blue home area around and across the field starting off at an overall impressive 125 points and ascending to 160 once a single slight turn addressed the issue to two challenges all the time showing Gracious Professionalism winning their team the Core Values award. As for those alliteration mustering Mighty Mangos they had quite a few odd ideas that worked. With the rules in mind nothing said audience members, a game piece, could not be attached to their art piece or the expert for that matter, and in one of the missions nothing said a team had to use the spring like mechanism to push the rolling camera and so minding the gap their device for nabbing experts could also be used to push the camera along. These little eccentric innovations won them the Engineering Excellence award. As for those Runaway Robots while they struggled early in competition with large elements which afforded them ample control over what they wanted their ability to move them had some problems until the final match where they nailed it down shown by a sizeable bump in their points in the match, a true match for the Breakthrough Award. As for the Garvey Dream Team though their spirits stayed high despite some failures that type of perseverance is the type that creates amazing innovations and though kept to the judges that Innovation Project shined through onto the awards winning them the award for the best innovation project.

As for the Livonia teams the Webster RoboCats did in some aspects the best. Their main focus was on good mechanical design to complement simple efficient code, that would pay off in a 3rd place score overall and with a well rounded team between their innovation project, core values, and robot performance there made champions of the competition. But as for Niji Iro RoboCranes they had an almost equally good result. The team would get the high score for the competition 215 points a mark of their efficient programming that fell somewhere between pure automation and mechanical change efficiency earning them the Rising All Star award befitting their mascot a crane.

Waves Crash On The Shore

The Deep Waters Lie Ahead

Diving, Losing Light

Email: icarlini@livoniawarriors.org
Website: www.livoniawarriors.com
Location: 8985 Newburgh Road, Livonia, MI 48150
Phone: 734-845-7961

The Livonia Warriors Communication Team are a team of mentors and students looking to keep the teams sponsors and community aware of the team's activities. A special thanks to Daniel Ernst for the use of some of his amazing photos in this newsletter.