Westside Boiler Invasion

Last Sunday, Team 461 held a dodgeball tournament at West Lafayette High School to raise money for the Purdue Center for Cancer Research.

Several news reports were made of the event, including this one from WLFI.

The event was a huge success, and we raised 200 dollars to donate the the Purdue Center for Cancer Research, which the team agreed to match. Many thanks to Mr. Timothy Bobillo for teaching us about the Center for Cancer Research!

WBI went through several sessions of prototyping, during which a kit drivetrain was constructed.

Our continuous cooperation with Team 1747 Harrison Boiler Robotics and Team 1646 Boiler Precision Guessworks have endured through this season.

In this photo, Westside Boiler Invasion alumnus Daniel Bravo welds for his new team, 1747.

2010 Breakaway was especially fun to design for, especially with this year’s new technical coordinator Pat Hart of 234, Cyber Blue.

Always ready to tackle design problems, our technical team cooperated with other 461 subteams to come up with the best solutions to the various challenges this year’s FRC game has to offer.

Pat, inspired by the new Autodesk Excellence in Design Award, worked with Andrea Deranek to document this year’s brainstorming and design process in detail.

As many of you know, the FIRST community gathered to receive a message from some of the greatest minds in the country on Saturday, January 9.  That’s right, build season is here, folks, and boy is that feeling sweet.  Prepare to devote more time than you ever have before to one singular goal: to inspire education and innovation in science and technology.

For those of you who don’t know, this year’s game is known as “Breakaway,” and it is based upon the game which is so well-enjoyed the world over,  football (“soccer” to us Americans).

Also see a complete description of all game rules here.

Good luck teams and devoted fans! Have fun thinking and building!