This is a difficult post to write. I hope that you will forgive my writing in “first-person” instead of the traditional journalistic “third person” that I usually strive for, in light of the subject of this post. The Granite City Gearheads need your help right now or we will cease to be as a team. [ Read More ]

The Gearheads are on a break until school starts, but things are happening in a couple of the other programs within FIRST. Yesterday, the game details were revealed for the FIRST LEGO League Explore and Challenge seasons. The theme for both is called “Cargo Connect”. FLL Explore is for students in Kindergarten to 4th grade. [ Read More ]
Today the Gearheads participated in our second parade for this year. It’s always fun to hear all the excited comments about Candybot. This year we premiered our upgraded Candybot with a new control board to make it easier to drive. We also had our flagbot in the parade and on the float an FLL Robot. [ Read More ]

Now that school is out for the summer, the Gearheads are making plans for our summer. We will be participating in the Granite City Days Parade on June 26th. We plan to bring the ever-popular Candybot, with some new updates! We also plan to be in the St. Joseph parade on the 4th of July. [ Read More ]

As Spring brings new signs of life after a long winter, so it is with Robotics. It’s been a long journey through Covid-19, and while it’s not over yet, there are signs of life returning to “normal”. It may be a ‘new normal’ but it’s a start. This weekend, the first in-person FRC competition in [ Read More ]

This week we tested out the prototype for our turret. We were able to feed a game piece through the prototype of the mechanism when powered by a drill. The next step is to make the hood movable and motorize it. In other news, many of us have been watching the videos of the rover [ Read More ]

The Gearheads have been meeting twice a week since Kick-Off. We have torn the robot apart and are working on upgrading the intake with the goal of adding a turret. We also got the robot running. Aiden has written new programming, and it seems to be working. Since he wrote the program Aiden had the [ Read More ]

The FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is well into its 2021 season, with alternative games and challenges necessitated by Covid. The Gearheads are meeting in-person twice a week with the option of virtual meetings with Build and Programming Coach Corey Applegate. During our in-person meetings, we have taken apart the intake and ball delivery mechanism from [ Read More ]