WHEN PEOPLE initially think of the Steel Hawks Robotics team, building until 8:05 PM every day and a lack of sleep are usually what come to mind. However, nobody ever thinks of the team members’ continued work after the competitions end and when summer begins. In fact, some Steel Hawks take it upon themselves to spend their summer analyzing the shortcomings that the robot had the previous year in order to not only increase the team’s rankings for entry into the FRC World Championships, but to relieve the pressure on their fellow team mates when the scramble to build begins.

Junior Derrick Mu, with the help of junior Angelina Huang and the mentoring of Priscilla Wong, was the leader in Vision, a programmed autonomous aiming system for future competitions.

He observed, “During last year’s competition, we were not able to score as much because we could not align the robot properly. This is where vision comes in. The team wanted to use a camera to see the goal and make the robot align itself using the camera. This was a daunting task since our team was never able to accomplish this, but I was up to the task. It required a lot of programming that I worked on with Angelina and the use of new programs. This is a major milestone for the Steel Hawks and I am proud to have gotten us there.”

However, a Steel Hawks’ work is never truly complete. When asked about goals for the upcoming year, Derrick plans to work with the team to integrate PID (proportional integral derivative) into the new designs to minimize error as much as possible. In addition to Vision, a programmed autonomous aiming system for future competitions.

He observed, “During last year’s competition, we were not able to score as much because we could not align the robot properly. This is where vision comes in. The team wanted to use a camera to see the goal and make the robot align itself using the camera. This was a daunting task since our team was never able to accomplish this, but I was up to the task. It required a lot of programming that I worked on with Angelina and the use of new programs. This is a major milestone for the Steel Hawks and I am proud to have gotten us there.”

However, a Steel Hawks’ work is never truly complete. When asked about goals for the upcoming year, Derrick plans to work with the team to integrate PID (proportional integral derivative) into the new designs to minimize error as much as possible. In addition to Vision, the new updates will allow for major improvements to the robot versus last year’s model and allow a major advantage to upcoming competitions such as Brunswick Eruption (in New Jersey) and Half Hollow Hills (in New York).

With high hopes for the new season, Junior Vice President Sam Diaz remarked, “Well, as every year before, our aim is to not only make it to worlds, but to compete our best and hopefully win as we do.” While new improvements benefit the team’s chance of success in the upcoming season, passion, hardwork and dedication is the Steel Hawk’s true trump card.