Our Year in Photos

A picture is worth a thousand words, so here's the story of our robotics year so far; most of these pictures were taken sometime between June 2012 and last week. Want to see more photos? You can see all the photos that have been featured on our blog (including those from past years) here.

Top row, left to right: Our most recent picture of our robot (4322); teaching kids about LEGO robots at a middle school outreach event; a previous version of this year's robot (4322).

Second row: Our robot's mustache, which detects weighted rings, says "hi"; interacting with kids at a YMCA summer outreach event.

Third row: Building custom parts with heat-forming plastic; giving kids some hands-on science experience at a summer robotics workshop; testing out this year's robot (452.)

Between rows: Working with other FIRST robotics teams to teach kids about programming.

Fourth row: Designing this year's robot (4322); making a claw using plastic; testing out prototypes; a plastic ring from this year's game; spare parts and metal waiting to be used.

Our Many Blog Updates

Hello, reader!  Have you seen all our changes to this blog?  Over the past few weeks and months, we've added several new pages, helpful documents, and things you'll enjoy.  Here's a list:

Fun Stuff: This page has all the random funny items that don't really go on our main blog.  Click here to check it out-- you'll be glad you did!

• Stop Robot Cruelty desktop backgrounds
• Word of the Day, which is a very unrealistic definition of a word
• Team Quotes, a page with interesting quotes from team members
• Doom Flower Comics about safety, the engineering process, and how to take over the world
• Lessons in field components, a commentary on this year's game

Videos: This page is for videos we've taken of our robots.  We hope to add some more soon.  Click here to view.

Meet the Bots: Want to meet the two PHI robots?  This page has everything you need to know, from stats to design history to photos.  Click here to see.

Need Help: We've compiled a list of information that new teams might find helpful for getting started with FTC, everything from what you'll need to how to survive your first tournament.  We hope to keep adding to our list as time goes on.  Click here to browse the Need Help page.

Suggestions?  If you have an idea of something you'd like to see on our blog-- more photos? new comics? more help for new teams? -- please let us know!  Post a comment or email us at phirobotics@yahoo.com.