SPORK Updates

To Our Sponsors… WORLDS Edition

We have exciting news following our time at the FRC World Championships held in Houston, Texas from April 17th-20th.  

After 2 days of difficult qualification matches, competing with the best teams around the world, Team SPORK finished 33rd out of 70 and was picked as the fourth member of the seventh alliance in our division, Turing. We were thrilled to compete with- Team 6672 Fusion Corps, Team 4451 ROBOTZ Garage, and Team 4513 Circuit breakers. Our alliance qualified for the semifinals, but sadly lost by 2 points at the end of the second match.

If you didn’t catch it, here is a piece that Good Morning America did on FIRST robotics and the World Championships.  If you look SUPER closely at a time of right around 7 seconds, you can see our drive team on the opposite side of the field.  Here is the link:

https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Living/video/robotics-trend-high-school-sports-62524295

While we did not come home with trophies,we learned a ton of valuable lessons!  This opportunity will surely help us grow as a team. We are consumed with discussions of drive trains, lifts, mechanisms, Chairman’s presentations, fundraising and MUCH more.  This will be a busy summer and fall as we attack the 2020-2021 season with our goal- Worlds!

We are sad to say goodbye to our two amazing seniors that will be graduating this year, Pooja and Anneliese. Pooja has been on the team for all of her high school career and Anneliese has been on the team for 3 years. Both of them have inspired many team members and will leave a legacy of hard work and passion for Team SPORK.  

Sponsors, we couldn’t do this without your generous support!  Following are some photos from the event, including those showing our team with our Alliance Partners, with the FIRST logo and our drive team speaking to judges in our pit.  Please contact us at robotics@pinelakeprep.org with any questions.  

Below, you will see our team switching out bumpers for our next match and below that, our robot SPORKNIK in action, and our crated robot ready for the trip home from Houston.   

To Our Sponsors… States Edition

We have exciting news following our state competition over the weekend at Campbell University in Dunn, North Carolina. Team SPORK is excited to have placed fifth overall in North Carolina!

After a day-and-a-half of challenging qualification matches, our team finished in 4th place out of the top 32 teams in the state. We joined FRC Team 4534 The Wired Wizards and FRC Team 4291 Astrobots on the 2nd Alliance! Although we were eliminated during the Semi-Final Matches on Sunday afternoon, we were awarded the Team Spirit Award!

But for even more thrilling news…..

We have qualified for the FRC World Championships held in Houston, Texas on April 17-21!

We are competing against some of the best teams and robots from across the globe. We will meet awesome people, share our experiences (and you!), attend conferences and meet new friends. We’re beyond excited to have this opportunity and are anxiously waiting for the competition to begin!

Sponsors, we couldn’t do this without your generous support! Following are some photos from the event, including those showing our team with the Campbell University Camel and your sponsor logos outside of our pit. Please contact us with any questions.

Sponsors, we so appreciate all your support to Team SPORK!

To Our Sponsors… Asheville Edition

Here is an update for you following the team’s second competition of the season, which took place over the weekend at UNC Asheville.  We’ve come so far since this year’s competition was revealed the first week of January – brainstorming the most effective design to accomplish this year’s “Destination: Deep Space” challenge, creating CAD models and electrical diagrams, programming and building the robot, testing and honing its capabilities, and then this weekend, competing against 32 other teams in a district competition.

Our team and robot performed well during the day-and-a-half of qualifying matches finishing 2nd out of 32 teams, becoming Alliance 2 captain, selecting Team 1533 Triple Strange and Team 6894 Iced Java. Our team was ecstatic to make it to the finals. After an exciting final round Team SPORK was named runner-up in the robotics competition. We also received runner-up for the Safety Award, sponsored by Underwriters Laboratories. One of our veteran mentors, Mr. Dave Lashley, was nominated for the Woodie Flowers Award. Good luck to him.

This event gave our team a great taste of competitions for the year, and for many of our younger team members, it was their second event. We will spend this week making some modifications to our robot, and next weekend we travel to Campbell University for the North Carolina state competition. With all that we’ve learned from this competition, we’re looking forward to a very successful event!

You can track our progress during the State competition by following any of our social media accounts. Also, watch us online live at: https://www.twitch.tv/first_north_carolina!

To Our Sponsors…

Hello Team SPORK Sponsors!

We’re writing to update you following the team’s first competition of the season, which took place over the weekend at Eastern Guilford High School.  We’ve come so far since this year’s competition was revealed the first week of January – brainstorming the most effective design to accomplish this year’s “Destination: Deep Space” challenge, creating CAD models and electrical diagrams, programming and building the robot, testing and honing its capabilities, and then this weekend, competing against 36 other teams in a district competition.

Our team and robot performed well during the day-and-a-half of qualifying matches finishing 5th out of 36 teams, joining Team 4534 the Wired Wizards and Team 5854 GLITCH on the 3rd Alliance. Unfortunately, we were eliminated in a quarter-final match late on Sunday. We did have some exciting success off the playing field – Team SPORK was awarded the Industrial Design Award, sponsored by General Electric.

This event gave our team the first taste of competition for the year, and for many of our younger team members, it was their first event.  We will spend this week making some modifications to our robot, and next weekend we travel to UNC-Asheville for our second regional competition.  With all that we’ve learned from this competition, we’re looking forward to a very successful event!

Sponsors, we couldn’t do this without your generous support!  Following are some photos from the event, including those showing your logos at our pit and on our robot.  Please contact us with any questions, and if you happen to be in Asheville next weekend, we’d welcome having you there to see the event and share in the fun!

Sponsors, we so appreciate all your support to Team SPORK ! Please click the link below and see us in action!

Link to watch us this weekend: https://www.twitch.tv/first_north_carolina

SPORK Shoot Off

Pine Lake Prep played a great game against Union Academy yesterday. SPORK was out shooting our SPORKcannon, along with selling 50/50 raffle tickets. Thank you to everyone who supported SPORK. Last night we sold to help robotics teams through the Carolinas that schools were flooded due to hurricane Florence. Thank you to everyone that came out to support our team.

SPORK Takes on Spain

Team SPORK would like to thank Enrique González for taking some time out of his busy schedule to come to talk to us about his experience in America. Enrique is a senior from Spain, who is staying with SPORK’s Ryan True.

Q: What is your favorite part about America?

E: I like a lot about America, everyone has treated me well, I feel really comfortable here. One of the things I enjoy the most about living here is the schools. For example, Pine Lake has been something that has caught my attention, the way it works, it’s very different than the way things are back in Spain. One of my favorite days was when I went to the University of Charlotte, I was completely amazed by the number of buildings, how big it was, everything seemed great.

Q: Do you guys have robotics teams back in Spain?

E: I bet there are but I haven’t seen any. I go to a public high school and this is unthinkable. We have a technology class in which they built a robot, it was the most ridiculous thing, a complete disaster. The robot didn’t work at all.

Q: Do you guys have STEM classes in Spain?

E: Yes, when you get to high school you get to choose one of three paths, one that centers around social science, economy, and marketing. One for humanities, which is all about history. Then you have the technology one in which you engineer and use technology, chemistry, physics, and math