Send the Fellowship to the World Championships

The Fellowship of the Robot, one of 14 teams in the Kerrville Robotics Alliance, has advanced to the World Championship and we need your help! The Kerrville Robotics Alliance is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, so all donations are tax deductible.

Kerrville has qualified to send 15 students to compete on the world stage in robotics at the FIRST Robotics World Championship. This team is ranked #2 in the south and #53 in the world out of 10,000+ teams!


**WHAT IS A ROBOTICS COMPETITION ANYWAY?**

During the first weekend of March, their team beat a recent world record in one of their matches with a 449 point score. Here is what a match looks like. Our team is in the top right, wearing black shirts with a white stripe down the side.


This match, which ends 437 - 296 before the score is adjusted by refs later, pit two powerful alliances against each other, each with a legacy team that has a demonstrated history of success in FIRST.

In the first thirty seconds the Fellowship (Kerrville wearing black shirts with white stripes) / Saber (Austin wearing green shirts) alliance on the right side of the video both score perfect autonomous runs, landing their robots, identifying the gold cube without touching the silver spheres, dropping a marker in the corner and parking their bot near a crater. In the next two minutes, the robots grab dozens of minerals and lift them into the "lander" driven by student drivers, operators, and coaches. These guys make it look easy (but trust us, it ain't easy). And don't miss the last second lift from Saber right at the buzzer!

Because: Kerrville and the Fellowship of the Robot mean business when it comes to providing STEM opportunities for rural students.


**WHAT SUPPORT DO WE NEED?**

Opportunities--and travel costs for 15 students and 2 coaches--aren't cheap. The costs are pretty simple and they break down like this:

Event Registration                  $134 / student
Hotels for four nights            $ 246 / student
Food for four days                    $ 120 / student
=================================
TOTAL COST / STUDENT    $ 500 / student


**HELP START ROBOTICS AT TIVY HIGH SCHOOL!**

We also have an opportunity to grow robotics in Kerrville by adding a team at Tivy High School. TFND Robots sounds pretty good, don't you think? This year, our first class of middle school robotics students will advance to Tivy, and they deserve to continue their hands-on engineering experience with FIRST robotics. While there are various costs for starting a new team, including a fee for fundraising through GoFundMe, we are hoping the community will be inspired to help us purchase two robotics kits to get this team the resources they need.

Control Set 2                         $220 (https://d.pr/free/i/idLkCS)
Electronics Set                     $125 (https://d.pr/free/i/GmyQLa)
Tetrix Competition Set  $530 (https://d.pr/free/i/vzVXhE)
=================================
TOTAL COST                         $875 / robot


**TO SUM UP**

Help us keep Kerrville Robotics affordable for these excellent students who have proven themselves in the engineering shop and on the robot battle field!

AND

Help us expand Kerrville Robotics into Tivy High School where even more students will have access to this incredible, live-changing program for students!

**A PHOTO GALLERY FROM THE FELLOWSHIP'S CURRENT SEASON**
In case you aren't convinced, just look at these students in action:
^^In the robot que before their next match.

^^Programming their robot to recognize spheres and cubes as separate objects using Tensorflow.

^^Presenting to the Kerrville City Council with Botjago (and parents) just before being honored with Kerrville Robotics Alliance Day (March 1).

^^Drive practice at least twice each week for several hours. 20% of each match is autonomous. Two students drive the robot for the other 80%.

^^Working on the intake mechanism for picking up "minerals" to score points in the match.

^^Learning to solder wires for the robot.

^^Stringing the extendable arms in order to have maximum reach for the robot.

^^Building their CAD designs in the real world for the first time.

^^Sharing the love of robotics with 70 summer campers each year in a game they designed.

^^Learning Java from mentors in the community.

^^Working on their bogey bot design, modeled after the Mars Rover.

^^Flashback to Daniels Mustang Robotics which helped start it all when they were in the fouth grade!