Mexico FLL Camp

During the summer of 2018, two Texas Torque members, Ithza and Cristy Lopez, traveled down to Nueva Rosita, Coahuila, Mexico to host the FIRST Lego League (FLL) camp, Construyendo los Ingenieros de Mañana (Building Tomorrow’s Engineers). They borrowed an FLL field and robot materials from Texas Torque as well as books in Spanish from local libraries to encourage reading.

The CIM Robotics camp established itself in Casa Grande in the summer of 2017.
Aimed to spread Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education and encourage STEM education equally to boys and girls, the camp was also two of Torque’s team members’ rural hometown.

In 2017, Ithza and Cristy were the sole mentors and only one school was able to participate in the camp. This year, every elementary school in the area was invited. Thirty 4th-6th grade students were accepted from the list of applicants as well as twelve student mentors from local community colleges. Alongside attendance growth, a small library was added to the camp so students would be able to read while participating, during recess, and at home.

At the end of the camp, the Texas Torque representatives hosted a closing ceremony. Local news stations and government, businessmen and women, engineers from the regional association, and a mentor from FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) 6684 RoboCats from Laredo attended the closing ceremony. At the ceremony, special awards were presented for an exemplary mentor and a handful of students who showed outstanding qualities as young engineers.

After the ceremony, Ithza and Cristy provided information on the requirements and benefits of official team formation. Using the information provided, Grupo Mexico has announced it will be sponsoring FLL teams in Nueva Rosita as well as their national network of sites for the 2019 FLL competition season. A private school in Nueva Rosita will also be forming a competitive group of FLL engineers, as well as several public schools in the area seeking sponsorship for teams. Thanks to the efforts of the Lopez sisters, Texas Torque has helped to spread the influence of FIRST on a global level in a town that is close to their hearts.

Concessions

On October 5th, Woodforest Bank Stadium was completely filled for the exciting College Park vs Klein Forest football game. Hundreds of fans cheered for their teams while 36 Texas Torque members provided them with the fuel to do so.

Concessions Photo

While mentors took orders and handled the cash registers, students prepped and supplied tasty concessions. Local boy scouts worked alongside our team members to collectively raise money for the Ray Wert Memorial Scholarship. Mr. Wert was a beloved mentor who passed away this past spring, his family donated $1,000 to create a memorial scholarship that was to be given to a student with Mr. Wert’s principles. With the funds raised by these students and mentors, an exemplary member of Texas Torque will receive this scholarship in memory of Mr. Wert’s dedication to his students.

 

In Loving Memory_Wert

The Remix 2018 Cancellation

Hello everyone,
Texas Torque will unfortunately not be able to host The Remix 2018 game.

The main purpose of The Remix was helping rookie teams gain experience, train rookie team members, and raising money for donations. We would still like to accomplish these goals and therefore will be working on other projects in the community.

For the teams that have been preparing for The Remix, we are planning to host a smaller ‘Rookie Roundup’ where the main purpose will be to train rookie and pre-rookie teams for the upcoming 2019 season. We hope to have more information in the next couple of days.

Thank you for your patience with us as we plan out these upcoming events. if you have any questions, feel free to contact Texas Torque at [email protected].

China Trip- July 2018

Texas Torque went abroad from July 20th through the 29th to participate in 2018 Chinese Robotics Challenge. At the competition, Texas Torque represented the United States by advancing to the semifinals as a part of the third seed alliance. Alongside Beijing-based teams 7095 HiMach and 5449 Prototype, Texas Torque showed off their 2018 robot Armageddon. Team 1477 mentor, Matt Davies, performed as Master of Ceremonies for the competition, bringing his southern charm to the opposite side of the globe. After the tournament concluded, event organizers took foreign teams on a tour of local areas around the South China Sea.

The team representatives also participated in cultural events. During the China exchange activity, Texas Torque took a fourteen-hour bullet train ride to Zhengjiang to meet team 6304 EAGLE and visit their facility. After the tour, Texas Torque revisited its past by competing with soccer robots against EAGLE.  Other activities included learning from experts in paper cutting, modeling clay, and Chinese knot making. When some members of the team fell sick, EAGLE generously covered the hospital bills. The team representatives visited Cultural History museums where they put their hands into fermented foods, ate specialty noodles, and viewed culturally significant artifacts. The final stretch of the trip involved Torque visiting the village of Zhen and a nearby Buddhist temple.

The team members that went on this once-in-a-lifetime trip received cultural and robotics knowledge, as well as developed international friendships. Texas Torque is extremely grateful for the opportunity to represent the United States given by Team EAGLE and hope for future cooperation.

2018 FIRST Houston World Championship

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Texas Torque’s last official event of the 2018 season was the Houston World Championship (our 8th consecutive World Championship) after triple qualifying at Lone Star Central (Regional Winners, Engineering Inspiration) and South Florida Regional (Chairman’s Award). The World Championship was held in George R. Brown Convention Center and Minute Maid Park, both held in our area, Houston, brought over 400 teams to Houston.

Texas Torque played on the Carver field, competing against 67 other teams for a spot on Einstein. After tough qualification matches, Texas Torque ended at the 47th position, with 4-6-0 record. Although the ranking was lower than anticipated, the robot performed well by continuously being the robot by being one of the robot that placed the most cubes. We were picked by team 5026 Iron Panthers, and together we picked team 108 SigmaC@T and team 1622 Spyder; together the teams formed the seventh seeded alliance. During the playoffs, our alliance was eliminated in the quarterfinals.

Congratulations to Carver division alliance on the World Championship finalists! We would also like to congratulate our friends 2468 Team Appreciate for their Hall of Fame Finalists, and team 148 Robowranglers for winning the Houston World Championship! We would also like to congratulate team 1311 Kell Robotics for their induction into the Hall of Fame.

We’re thankful to have enjoyed a successful and action-packed 2018 season, but the action hasn’t ended yet — we’ll be facing the boss this may at the Texas UIL State Championships!

2018 Repsol Student Awards

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On Thursday, April 12, Texas Torque was invited to attend the Repsol Student Awards, an event created by Repsol to recognize students who placed first in any local STEM related school district competition.

We demonstrated our 2018 robot “Bravo”, a version of our bagged competition robot, which we built for drive team practice in our lab. Although the stage space was too small to fully use and extend our robotic arm, we were able to invite NASA Astronaut Dr. Anna Lee Fisher to drive “Bravo” around the stage.

signing

At the event, Texas Torque members had the opportunity to speak with Dr. John Charles, a NASA researcher and head scientist, Dr. Anna Lee Fisher, a NASA Astronaut and Medical doctor, the president of Repsol, and our school district’s remarkable superintendent Dr. Don Stockton. Both Dr. Charles and Dr. Fisher were kind enough to sign Bravo’s blue bumpers after taking group photos.

A high-achieving local FLL team 983 had also been invited to the Repsol Student Award ceremony, and the FLL team presented their own homemade video showcasing their achievements, much like an FRC Chairman’s Award video.

Texas Torque was honored to attend the event and we were happy to present our accomplishments  to our local business community, from parents, to small business owners, to major corporations.