"Strive for perfection in everything you do. Take the best that exists and make it better. When it does not exist, design it." - Sir Henry Royce

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Dear Gael Force Robotics members and parents,

As the High Stakes competition season approaches, the club has been working hard to prepare. Competition teams have built their first robot iterations, hosted practice matches (scrims), and are making improvements for the first competitions in mid-September to qualify for the States tournament.

The officer board has been working on several projects. Recently, we participated in the QKids workshop for Qualcomm, introducing children to STEM principles and who we are. We’re looking forward to several upcoming events, such as the GirlPowered Workshop on October 12th! We also officially moved into our club room, which will host all Gael Force Academy and Club-Wide meetings.

Our finance team reestablished GFR’s partnership with Robosource, an online retailer for robotics parts, and have also established a connection with LogoBoss. Moving forward, we’re excited to reach out and partner with other organizations to promote GFR.

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Upcoming Events:

• Fall GFR Showcase: Friday, August 30th
• Parent Info Meeting: Tuesday, September 3rd
• GirlPowered Workshop: Saturday, October 12th
• GFR Workshop: Sunday, November 10th

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Officers’ Notes:

Atiksh Paul, President:

“This summer, we've successfully moved into the club room, the new home of GFR and a place where we can hold GFA meetings, scrims, and all of our parts. We also attended the QKids workshop, showcasing to over 100 children and pitching a sponsorship proposal to Qualcomm. During this year, I plan to expand club operations, including restarting the projects sector of the club and making more sponsored partnerships. I wish good luck to each captain in starting their season!”

Naman Garg, Vice President:

“Over the summer, I helped with the club-room move in organization and inventory and participated in the QKids workshop. I also attended several team meets, giving suggestions and making sure teams are progressing. This season, I hope to help in the organization of future events, such as BOTB, GirlPowered, and hopefully more workshops. I also hope to continue helping competition teams, with the goal of bringing all of them to Worlds.”

Shaaktiram Balakumar, Treasurer & Easton Nguyen, Secretary:

“Our focus of the summer, and the rest of the year, is to provide GFR with more funding, which goes to parts, competition fees, hosting events, and more. We’ve reestablished our partnership with Robosource and are reaching out to hundreds of potential sponsors. We’re currently applying for grants from companies whose goals align with our mission statement. We’re also working to create a monthly newsletter to provide consistent club updates and maintain transparency.”

Jia Aggarwal, Senior PR/ED:

“This summer, I established a new annual GFR event: attending Qualcomm's QKids workshop. In May, I organized and ran GFR's summer showcase event, and currently I'm preparing for our fall showcase event at the end of August. I also worked towards building our relationship with Qualcomm, which will help us gain sponsorships, internal connections, and cool opportunities for GFR students. As the school year starts, BOTB prep will go full swing, so stay tuned!”

Ishaan Choudhury, Junior PR/ED:

“Our Event Team, made up of dedicated club members, is committed to enhancing GFR's future and organizing successful Community Events. Over the summer, they worked hard on creating content for the GirlPowered and GFR Workshops and staying active on outreach, via Social Media. Moving forward, they aim to prepare thoroughly for these workshops to ensure smooth operations and increase outreach to neighboring schools through various channels. The Event Team is determined to take a stride in both the club and the community!”

Kevin Geng & Kaito Suzuki, DEV Officers:

“Our goal for the 2024-25 season is to orient GFA toward competitions instead of simply teaching the fundamental concepts. We would make GFA an environment for students to become viable team members in not only robotics skills, but teamwork and competitiveness.

This summer, we worked towards creating a plan for the upcoming GFA season, through parts acquisition, lesson planning, and goal-setting. Through lesson planning and additional goal-setting, the upcoming development academy has plans towards hosting mock competitions and competition team showcases, improving interested members' familiarity with the club alongside their competition team peers. By providing these students with the premier resources, we aim to enable them to be strong members in all of the nuances of robotics.”

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Captains’ Notes:

Sahith Ajay, 5327A Captain:

“So far we have been able to make our first robot, which is now functional. We still plan on making edits before our first competition on Sep 14, but we are mainly going to focus on programming and driver practice until then. For future goals, we plan on teaching younger members as well as experimenting with different drives and mechanisms.”

Arpit Jena, 5327C Captain:

“Over the past couple of weeks, we worked on tuning our bot for our upcoming tournament on the 14th. In the future, we see ourselves at the top 5 of the skills leaderboard and having a great performance in match play, ultimately making dome.”

Aiden Wang, 5327K Captain:

“We built 2 robots and attended a scrimmage over the summer. We are currently preparing for our first competition in a few weeks. Our goals for this season are to learn and have fun.”

Kaushik Chandolu, 5327R Captain:

“This summer team 5327R has worked on brainstorming, designing, building, and programming our robot. We started the season off at the end of last year where we built a few prototype mechanisms that we showcased at our Game Day event. Later over the summer we worked on building our competition robot, and now we are programming it for our upcoming competition in September.”

Aarav Kashyap, 5327V Captain:

“This summer, we finished our first robot, which consists of a clamp and hook conveyer on an X-Drive base. Currently, we’re working on our second iteration and our autonomous routines, with the goal of being skills champions at Worlds.”

Arjun Chakraboty, 5327Y Captain:

“So far into the season, we are almost done with the first iteration of the bot. We need to add some finishing touches for aesthetics and optimization, and then we should be finished. After that, we will be starting programming and hope to create skills and autonomous paths within the next couple weeks before our first competition in September.”