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
Due to the current conditions of COVID-19 and the repeat of the 2020 season, it was recently announced on May 25th that the 2020 Rah Cha Cha Ruckus off-season event was officially canceled. In an official post on the event’s website, it was stated that “official playing fields are unavailable for off-season events.” Furthermore, due to the uncertainty of New York’s reopening, it was difficult to guarantee that the event would have been able to commence as originally planned.
The Warlocks have competed at the annual Ruckus off-season event every year since its inception in 2005. While the Warlocks are disappointed that our only offseason event is canceled, we know that it’s for the health and safety of our community, which is far more important. We are looking forward to participating in the 2021 Ruckus and supporting our local offseason event.
You can read the official post here: http://ruckus.penfieldrobotics.com/ruckus-2020
On May 13th, FIRST announced many new updates to its COVID-19 blog post. This post provided updates regarding the 2020 season, which has been officially canceled. However, since almost half of FRC teams did not get to play Infinite Recharge, FIRST is replaying this game for the 2021 season.
However, the game will not be identical. New rules to the game and changes in gameplay will be announced at kickoff, on January 9th, 2021. This still maintains the traditional build season but allows teams to reuse integral components in their 2021 gameplay.
The Warlocks are ultimately disappointed by the cancellation of the 2020 season but are grateful we were able to compete at Miami Valley.
You can read more about FIRST’s response to COVID-19 here: https://www.firstinspires.org/covid-19
This year, instead of going to the Buckeye regional, the Warlocks have decided to attend the Miami Valley Regional in Fairborn Ohio. This will be the first of two regional’s that the team competes at. Although we are sad to leave the Buckeye Regional, we are excited to compete at Miami Valley.
Location and Dates:
The Miami Valley Regional will be held from February 26th to the 29th. The event is hosted at the Wright State University Nutter Center. The address is listed below:
Wright State University
3640 Colonel Glenn Highway
Fairborn, OH 45324
The webcast for the Miami Valley Regional will be available on The Blue Alliance, along with several other community run sites for aggregating webcasts for all official FRC Events. We recommend using The Blue Alliance, as they are typically the most reliable.
Below is a direct link to GameDay, which is the name of The Blue Alliance’s webcast portal. To watch the Miami Valley Regional, hover over the webcasts link in the top left and drag “Miami Valley Regional” into one of the viewing panes below.
There are many different sources for match schedules and results, but the only official source is from FIRST themselves. Below are links to the official FIRST event result pages for the Miami Valley Regional. In addition to the official event pages below, you can also find match schedules, rankings, and scores at thebluealliance.com
Qualification Match Schedule/Results
Playoff Match Schedule/Results
Rankings
Awards
On Saturday January 4th, the Warlocks kicked off the 2020 season with the game Infinite Recharge. Missed the kickoff? Watch the game animation here!
We’re excited to begin brainstorming ideas for our newest robot! During the kickoff event, the team was broken up into smaller groups and we went through a variety of scenarios, such as the Dream Team, Win in Auto, and Play the Game, to determine the best functions for our robot. Each group had time to work out the scenario specific to their group and then they reported back to the rest of the group. At the end of the day, the team gathered in the gym to watch a group of students “play” the game.
On Sunday, the team met at MAHLE to continue brainstorming ideas. By the end of the meeting, we determined what functions we believe are absolutely necessary to make our robot function smoothly.
As Week 1 begins, the students will continue brainstorming until we figure out the design we are going to pursue. Check back in on this section of the website during the season to see how the team progresses through build season and competitions.
From March 14th-16th, the Warlocks competed in the Finger Lakes Regional at the Rochester Institute of Technology. At the Finger Lakes Regional, the Warlocks had some tough matches but ended up being 12th out of 48 teams. We then were selected by 3157 (Alliance Captain of the #4 Alliance) and we graciously accepted. 
After going to a tiebreaker in the quarterfinal matches, we moved on to the semifinals against the #1 ranked alliance. After 2 hard matches, our alliance was sadly defeated.
We are looking forward to the competition in Cleveland next weekend and we will hopefully be securing our spot to the World Championship in Detroit, Michigan.
The FIRST Robotics Competition begins for the 2019 season this Saturday with Kickoff, the game reveal that sets the stage for the world-wide competition.
The Warlocks will be meeting at the school to view the game reveal video and immediately begin planning the 2019 strategy. The school will be open at 9:00 am. Attendance is mandatory for all student team members. Parents, sponsors, former team members, and the general public are welcome to attend.
When the kickoff video is over, the team will immediately begin studying the rules and developing a game strategy for the season. The team has been preparing by studying the basics of robot construction and recently completed sessions on brainstorming techniques. The hope is to have a strategy and design direction developed after three days. There will also be an optional day on Sunday afternoon (January 6,2019) at MAHLE from 1 pm to 5 pm.
Watch the live stream of this year’s game video, beginning at 10 am!
The Warlocks, Team 1507, are planning to attend the Northern Championships of FIRST Robotics Competition. The event is happening in Detroit MI on April 25-28.
The six competition divisions, each the size of a regional event with 68 teams, will be at the Cobo Hall. The winners of these divisions will eventually be narrowed down and a final event will take place Saturday afternoon at Ford Field. Over 400 teams will be participating, as well as FIRST Tech Challenge teams.
The Warlocks will be leaving the school by bus around noon on Wednesday and return Sunday early morning.
We will be competing in the Carson Division. Those who want to watch online can do so at The Blue Alliance Gameday Matches will take place all day Thursday and Friday with Division finals on Saturday morning.
Students were given a packet with details to bring home for parents information.
Received the sad news today that Mark Leon, “NASA Mark” has passed away.
Many of us who have been in FIRST some time will remember him as a game Emcee at Championships and many Regionals. He hosted both Fingerlakes and Buckeye multiple times as well as IRI and many regional competitions in his home area. He was one of the go-to Emcees that FIRST could always call on to fill in anywhere.
He was known for his many anecdotes from his travels around the world and his acrobatics on the field.
He was accomplished in both Judo and Tae-kwon-do. He volunteered as an self-defense instructor with high school students.
In the 1980s Mark Leon was instrumental in establishing trans-Atlantic communication between American, French and English space agencies. In the 1990s he completed the first audio/video link to Antarctica.
He was Program Manager for the NASA Lunar Micro-Rover Program, a smaller rover similar to the Mars Rover.
In recent years, he was in charge of NASA’s Robotics Alliance Project, which kept him working closely with FIRST. He was a mentor to many robotics teams in many programs over the years.
Mark Leon quotes:
We will miss hearing his catchphrase “Do the math. Save the World.”
Mark Leon: Helping Kids Build a Better Robot
2018 Championship Mark Leon Memorial Robot Sticker
The Warlocks attended the Buckeye Regional in Cleveland OH on March 27-30. While we didn’t bring home the big trophy, we did very well with a 7-5 record in the matches, leaving us ranked 8th among the 55 teams. That was high enough to become an alliance captain, and we chose teams 4020 Cyber Tribe from Kingsport TN, and 3266, Robots-R-Us from Eaton OH. to complete our alliance team for the finals.
But despite a promising alliance, we were met with a stronger team and were eliminated in the quarter-finals. The alliance included old friends team 291, CIA from Erie PA and team 379 the Robo-Cats from Girard OH, both teams that we have partnered with in past years and are strong competitive teams. Their third member was also a familiar upcoming powerhouse, team 6490, Panther Robotics from Geneva NY fresh from the Fingerlakes Regional, as we were.
We were sent off to Cleveland with a feature story from WGRZ TV, Channel 2 in Buffalo who told the team’s story and encouraged their viewers to watch our matches and cheer us on. You can see their report here.
Next stop for the Warlocks will be Detroit for the Championships on April 25-28, 2018.