This year, the Warlocks attended Ra Cha Cha Ruckus, 2023. While at Ruckus, we ranked 20th after qualification rounds were finished. The Warlocks were then chosen to play on alliance four. While beating alliance five, we unfortunately lost to alliance one, and alliance six leading to our elimination.
The Warlocks had a great time and learned a lot. We are loud and ready for the 2024 season!
Over the summer, we participated in many outreach programs such as the Niagara County Fair, Chalk Fest, Lockport Cruise Night, and Buy American Day. At the Niagara County fair, we shared lots of important information about our team and FRC, also showing off our robots to children. As well as this, we made buttons with the community. During chalk walk, we had people check out our robots, have the opportunity to make buttons, and, of course, make chalk art. We shared our robots and set up a booth with warlocks gear at Lockport cruise night, and we participated at Buy American Day. At Ruckus, we were picked by alliance four and placed 20th.
This pre season, we are looking forward to being a part of Light up Lockport and Girlpower. Girlpower is an event for girls ages 7 – 13 that takes place on Saturday, November 18th from 1:00-3:30. Here, you can find yourself experiencing hands-on and interactive stem activities. Address is the Challenger Learning Center, 160 Washburn st in Lockport. Don’t forget to support our float at Light up Lockport on November 25th!
The Warlocks still have a lot in store even if the 2023 Season is over. The Warlocks have participated in local cruise nights to promote FIRST in our neighborhood. We will also participate in the CF Walk on May 20 and a post-season regional hosted by team 5740 the Trojanators. We also intend to visit elementary schools and attend the Erie and Niagara county fairs.
The Warlocks enjoyed their weekend in Cleveland, Ohio, at the Buckeye Regional. The warlocks used the opportunity to give back by helping to construct the practice field and the actual field during load in. The Warlock assisted a rookie team’s robot in passing inspection the next day. We finished in 15th place, were selected second by alliance 6 (teams 1405 and 6964), advanced to the second round, but were regrettably eliminated.
Throughout the season, the Warlocks have dedicated themselves to creating a competition-ready robot. In addition, our outstanding student government representatives gave a presentation on our team and the FIRST organization, and our tech wing was visited by two local politicians, Senator Robert Ortt and Assemblyman Michael Norris.
However, our team’s primary focus is not solely on the robot. Our parent Boosters have done an incredible job organizing successful fundraising activities such as bake sales and a massive meat raffle with more than 400 participants, which have contributed greatly to our team spirit. Furthermore, we are committed to enhancing our community by hosting events such as visits to local middle schools to educate students about the Warlocks and FIRST.
The Warlocks had an amazing weekend at RIT this season. After qualifying matches we ranked 9 out of 55 teams. After a few of the alliance selections we moved up in the ranks to be a #7 seed Alliance Team Captain. Greater Rochester Robotics Team GRRRR 340 and Capital Region Robotics – The Dynamos 250 graciously accepted our invitation to join our alliance. After fighting through the upper and lower brackets we faced the #1 seed alliance in the finals; making our team a true underdog story. In the second final match our robot Swirly tipped over and Lily 340 lost power. The WARLOCKS showed up, played and exemplified the spirit of FIRST with great cheer and unity on and off the field.
Happy 2023 season start! The Warlocks are hard at work this season. We have confirmed two presentations with local Lockport legislators to show our tech department. We hope to inspire them with our team’s hard work and to further the spread of FIRST. We have also worked to spread FIRST to Aaron Mossell Junior Highschool and to some local cub scout and girl scout troops. We continue to build our team’s spirt with team building exercises and activities, which we also hope to bring the team closer with.
Thanks to the pandemic the 2020 Rah Cha Cha Ruckus off-season event was officially canceled. But, back in October of 2021 team 1507
got the opportunity to participate in the Rah Cha Cha Ruckus once again. The Warlocks brought their robot Dot Matrix who preformed
extremely well at the competition. The team had a great time despite only being able to bring six people on the team. There were only
thirty teams there and the Warlocks were able to participate in the finals. Team 1507 may not have been the champions of the Rah Cha Cha Ruckus but the Warlocks did go home with the Voodoo Doll award for the best autonomous.
The team went on to FLR and was selected by the fifth seeded alliance with teams 2638 and 3173. The Warlocks got knocked out in the semi finals. Overall at the event we ranked 18 out of 37. When the team traveled to Cleveland for Buckeye we were picked by the third seeded alliance. we played with the teams 3003 and 4145. Knocked out and lost power in the first round of the quarter finals. Overall they ranked 12th out of 59.
You can read the official post here: http://ruckus.penfieldrobotics.com/ruckus-2020
The 2022 season does not have a weekly blog update due to higher priorities. The build season this year went smoothly, students and mentors wore masks and did their best to social distance. Eating became a very controlled experience. Everything went along on schedule, our robot (DOS) had a 180º turret and a limelight for a target lock. The programming team did an excellent job at creating an autonomous mode that was very competitive. DOS was ready to compete on time and the team had a blast at regionals.