Nova Labs Robotics Team Heads for the Field

“Electrical?” “Ready!” “Drivers?” “Ready!” “Software?” “Good to go!” “Mechanical?” “Robot is reset and ready!” “OK, roll Perry. Good luck!”

The Nova Labs drive team heads for the field, following Perry the Platypus, their 2025 entry in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC).

With the robot on the field and positioned, the drivers do their special handshake and stand focused behind the glass waiting for the match to start.

The match begins. The first 15 seconds are fully autonomous, and this season, our auto has been a big learning opportunity for our software team. The robot design allows for some movement in the robot structure after it launches off at full speed so timing the release of the game piece to the movement of the structure has been a huge challenge for our budding coders.

The next two minutes and fifteen seconds of the game are driven by the students behind the glass. They focus on fine tuning the movements of the robot, coordinating play with the two other teams in the alliance, and strategizing where to place game pieces to maximize points earned. At the very end of the game, they attempt to finesse the robot into the perfect position -halfway down the field - for it to lift itself off the ground, while another robot is performing the same maneuver just a few inches away. 

If you were doing the math, you’ll see that each match is 2 minutes and 30 seconds, so what on earth takes the whole weekend? Well, FRC competitions are far more than the play time on the field for the 32 teams in attendance. When our robot is not on the field playing, the entire team is watching other teams play the game and recording performance data in a custom-made app so that when the time comes, we are ready to choose what teams will make up our final alliance partners to play in the elimination games.

When students are rotating through scouting, they take breaks, and we find them learning other skills, like making earrings as swaps to other teams based on the year’s game pieces or learning how to crochet sea creatures in alignment with this year’s game theme (“Reefscape”). Other students are in the pits repairing our robot and preparing it for the next match. And yet other students are posted in the pit ready to talk with judges about how we built our robot and sustain our team. And, if all of that wasn’t already a full day of work, more people from our team go and help other teams when they are struggling. At events so far this year, our team has wired other robots, helped with code, repaired bumpers, and trained other teams on how to talk with judges. 

By the time each day ends, our team has put in more than a full day of work of strategizing, repairing, scouting, public speaking, and driving…..and the work isn’t over! We head back to the hotel, where a team of kids go over all the scouting data to be prepared for the next day’s decisions about alliance selection.

We set goals at the beginning of the year and before each competition. Of course, the kids’ first goal is to “Win a Blue Banner!!!” They know that to do this they need to work together as a team and have a good time. So, we start each event with three goals: 1) have fun 2) earn an award from the judges and 3) win a blue banner. At our team events thus far, they have 1) had fun 2) earned awards and 3) won second place at each event. If you’d like to see the information we share with the judges, you can look at all our information booklets here: https://frc8592.novalabsrobotics.org/about/our-robots/2025

We are thrilled to report that our team is still headed towards the goal it set way back in September to play at World Championships! After two qualifying events, we have been invited to play at the District Championships. Performing well there will earn us our invitation to the World Championships.

Our team knows how hard it is to compete in the FRC events, and so every season we work to communicate to other FRC teams that we are ready to help other teams. This season from within the walls of Nova Labs, our kids and coaches have machined parts for team 2963 and 9072. We have shared our field with team 339 so they could fine tune their autonomous code. We have lent parts to 8326. And, we have virtually coached the adult mentors setting up a rookie team at Vector Space Makerspace, team 10257.  

We will be playing with 53 other teams at The Show Place Arena in Upper Marlboro April 4 - 6, and we would love for you to come watch all the magic of an FRC event. The excitement of the kids, the passion of the volunteers, the preparedness by all the teams is a hopeful environment in which to spend a few hours on a weekend. The event is free to watch.

Pro tip: the Sunday afternoon games are always the most thrilling ;) 

If you do come by, bring your safety glasses so that you can come tour the pits. And, definitely stop by our pit to say “Hi” so we can give you a great big “thank you!” for the support that Nova Labs has given in helping our team achieve its goal of Building People Through Robots!

Go Nova Labs Robotics!

8592 on three…..1, 2, 3! 8592!

https://frc8592.novalabsrobotics.org/