Last year, M-SET endured a rough season at the Seattle and Silicon Valley Regional, as failures in the electronics of their robot came at the worst time possible.
This year, the team hopes to kick off a successful year by attending the Oct. 21-22 Cal Games Event. The competition will be held at Archibishop Mitty and has more than 30 teams participating.
With just weeks before Cal Games, M-SET has a totally re-engineered robot, fixing mistakes that they encountered last year.
President Michael Zuccarino said the newly designed robot will incorporate more effective concepts that had seemingly worked for the other teams last year. Increases in stability, speed and precision are just some of the aspects being re-designed for this upcoming event.
M-SET this year has attracted many interested freshmen. Active parents teach and supervise the ongoing activity in the robotics room, ensuring that members are using the different machines correctly.
The robotics room is located in the music quad, housing two robots and more than 10 power tools. The team members build their robot from the ground up in the room every year.
“We have mentors teaching the new members how to use each tool,” Zuccarino said. “We’ve gotten a lot more organized and now have a public calendar in which we assign deadlines for when things have to be done. It’s helped us save a lot of time.”
Another change is to create a new fundraising team that aids in finding sponsors and grants. The team has approximately eight people who give presentations to nearby companies in order to acquire sponsorships.
Fundraising head David Sparkman said the fundraising team has been discussing possible grants and sponsors, but in the meantime the team has planned to hold movie nights and schoolwide events to make some money going into the season. Apart from the fundraising team, Sparkman said the build team has currently 30 active members.
M-SET already has acquired sponsors FESTO Automation Controls and Valin, which contributes the majority of the team’s funding. In addition, M-SET will also be applying for a NASA Grant, which rewards each accepted team $15,000.
A big challenge this year is having to make up for the leadership of 2011 graduate Cordell Hollingsworth, who led the team for two years.
“The team has potential and even after losing Cordell we’ll just have to tough it out and hope for a spectacular season,” Zuccarino said.