Day One: Bear Metal Summer Camps 2024

Students work on assembling their conveyor mechanism.

Bear Metal is excited to share the start of our Summer Fun! Yesterday, we started our first week of five weeks of summer camps, more specifically our Flag Frenzy summer camp. There are three objectives in Flag Frenzy. The first objective are Flags installed at opposite sides of the playing field from a robot’s alliance area. Flags can be deployed by pulling a lever, so robots can score 15 points for their alliance. The second objective is the Terminal. The Terminal is a bucket divided in half, to have one side for each alliance. Each Scoring Ball, a 1.5 inch diameter whiffle ball, in the Terminal at the end of a game is worth one point. The last objective is the Climb. At the end of a game, robots can drive and balance on top of the climb, a see-saw-like platform, two of which are each in their accompanying alliance zone. We have made this year’s game a challenge, however we are confident in their abilities to make a performant robot which can excel in this game.

A basic diagram of the field.

Our first day included greeting awesome students who met their amazing Bear Metal team counselors, making group names and even starting work on robots. By the end of the day, most teams had a general idea of the type of robot they wanted to build, including their arm or shooter and chassis. Most groups even made decent progress on starting assembling their chassis. During lunch, campers even got to play catch with our Bear Metal 2024 competition robot and feed game pieces into the robot! In the coming days, robots will be completed with a livestream of our competition on Friday!

Students working on coming up with a basic robot design.