It’s time for the Michigan State Championships!
Check out the webcast provided by Detroit Public Television
Dates/ Times: The Live Stream will be on April 13th from 9:30 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. with an hour break between 12:30 P.M. – 1:30 P.M. A one hour program of the competition will air on Detroit Public Television, WTVS on May 4th time is TBD.
Link to Live Stream Player: http://www.dptv.org/robotics
FIRST Team 33, the Killer Bees, has been building robots and inspiring students since 1996. Our team is based in Pontiac, MI and is supported by Notre Dame Preparatory School. This year we have our largest team ever with 41 Bees and 10 mentors buzzing and ready to play. Along with us is a huge support team of sponsors, parents, teachers, friends and family. You can see us – our yellow color and antennae are distinctive.
We made a big decision to consolidate our community outreach efforts into one specific goal – to impact something that we care about. Over the last several years, we have had friends and family members affected by cancer. So, instead of small, repeated efforts our team went a step beyond this year with the Relay for Life. We sold pink antennae to benefit cancer patients, our robot led laps at the Relay for Life, our students walked 33 laps, and we stayed all night to support those struggling with this disease. We smashed our fund-raising goal and won the imagery award at the event.
And we build robots. Lots of robots. To do anything well, you have to practice and learn many times over. The FRC season is intense; we have to learn and improve outside of the season too. To do this, we participate in both the VEX and OCCRA (Oakland County Competitive Robotics Association) leagues. This allows us to have more students build more robots and learn new skills. We build our robots in the Chrysler Technical Center with the assistance of many sponsors and volunteer mentors/ engineers. Students learn hands-on engineering skills, including CAD, constructing/machining parts, building the sub-systems, programming, electrical controls, systems integration, problem solving skills and more. What we do, we share with others. Our robot designs and programming code are shared with anyone who wants them.
On top of competing and volunteering, our team does demonstrations. We show our robot anywhere, from large events such as Maker Faire to just a few people at the local senior center. Parades, pep rallies, and presentations – the Killer Bees and their robots are everywhere.
This is not possible without having a steady stream of new Bees…and we help make sure students as young as 1st grade are exposed to math, science, engineering and technology including BEES days (a summer camp for younger students) through Jr. FLL and FLL. Many of our Killer Bees have FLL experience and take their skills as Killer Bees back to mentor the younger students.
Through our involvement in school and the community, the Killer Bees attract many different types of people. One of the unique features of the Killer Bees is that we have more girls than guys on our team and most of us also participate in other extra-curricular activities, including theatre, varsity sports, marching band, volunteerism, and club leadership.
Who are we? 33
What are we? Killer Bees
“Teamwork keeps the hive alive!”