The Dalek’s are ready to go at Mount Olive, with their first Qualifying match at 11:07.  

For the schedule and to link to the live stream, visit: https://www.thebluealliance.com/team/3637/2018.

Go Dalek’s!

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The six weeks flew by and before the Daleks knew it, it was time for the Bridgewater-Raritan District Competition. From cheering, to Chairman’s Award presentations, to scouting, to robot tune-ups, the day was filled with fun and passed before the team realized it. We finished in 22nd place and it was time for alliance selections. We were chosen by Alliance 6 and joined Team 747 and Team 219. Together we scored the high score for the day of 360! With great teamwork we made it to the finals but lost in a difficult match against the first seed alliance. We would like to thank our alliance members for helping us get that far and for a really fun competition experience! The time for awards rolled around and we were presented with the Finalist Award and Creativity Award sponsored by Xerox for our unique climbing mechanism! We are honored to have won our first engineering award. Also, our advisor Mr. M was awarded the Donald Bowers Inspiration Award for being an individual who instills the values of FIRST within their team. We are so proud!

A week later the team hopped on a bus to the Montgomery District Event. As always … More

The team poured in, bright but bleary-eyed, at approximately 8 a.m., and opening ceremonies were kicked off by the national anthem not twenty minutes later. We snapped our heads towards the game schedule and found we were immediately engaged, scheduled to compete in the first qualifying match of the day. At 9 a.m., Hexcalibur had emerged from hibernation and taken its stance on the field, decked in red alliance bumpers and blinking reverently. The timer sounded, and in a flash, our alliance was victorious 72-60, but the drivers hurried to escort the robot back into the pit. Upon inquiring with the chiefs, it was found that Hexcalibur’s swiss was not functioning during the round, despite a splendid performance. Further inspection revealed that a sensor was loose in the snowblower motor, and was hastily repaired. Even so, we suffered defeat in the following two matches, but returned triumphant in the fourth and fifth, finishing the qualifying games in 6th place, making us alliance captains for the elimination rounds to come.

From the 41 participating teams, we selected our gracious hosts, Team 25, Raider Robotix, and Team 533, The PSIcotics, to ally with us in the upcoming matches. Before the games began, … More

Even after the 15 hour bus ride from Flemington, New Jersey to Saint Louis, Missouri, the Daleks were filled to the brim with excitement. After getting cleaned up the team went to the Edward Jones Dome to set up their pit and start the day of competition in the Galileo division.

The Daleks all enjoyed meeting new people from all over the world. There were teams from all over the US  and Brazil, Australia, Israel, and many others. The team had tons of fun in and out of the competition. When they weren’t competing, team members went to workshops on leadership, diversity in FIRST® robotics, automated driving, scouting strategies and more. They also went to the Innovation Fair to see new technology and demonstrations. During downtime, the Daleks went to the top of the Gateway Arch, the City Museum, and Six Flags. The competition was intense, and although the Daleks didn’t make it past the qualification matches, Team 3637 were proud to have made it as far as they did. The Daleks even won a UL© Hard Hat award for safety given to only three teams in the Galileo and Carson divisions. The closing ceremonies were awesome with Dean … More

After a successful season in Team 3637’s district events, the Daleks were filled with enthusiasm and spirit heading to the Mid-Atlantic Regional competition. Lehigh University was packed with students ready for a fun and action-packed day of robotics!

As always, the qualification matches were intense, but fun nonetheless. In between matches, the Daleks met new people and collected buttons from the other teams attending. Team 3637 won the UL© Hard Hat award for the top three safest teams of the day and our safety captain, Laura, was presented the UL© Safety Star of the Day! We also passed around our sheets of “Tear-able Puns” and some of them were even announced by the MC during alliance selections. After sitting through a nail-biting alliance selection, the Daleks ultimately were not picked to join an alliance and continue into the quarter-finals.

The Daleks still stayed in good spirits. When the award ceremonies rolled around, Team 3637 was once again filled with anticipation. The Daleks were honored once again with the Industrial Safety Award sponsored by UL©!

Team 3637 had a great competition season, and will continue at Saint Louis for the World Competition!… More

The time for Team 3637’s final district competition for the 2015-16 season had arrived. The Daleks were focused and determined to make this competition a great one. The Daleks were prepped for the exciting day ahead of them.

As at all FIRST® events, the competition was fierce. Overall, the Daleks placed 2nd in the standings after the qualification matches, an all time high for the team! Later that afternoon, the Daleks, becoming the alliance captain, were joined by Team 869, PowerCord and Team 272, Cyber Crusaders. The Daleks had a blast working with these teams and cheering in the stands with them. But after a rough best 2 out of 3 competition, the Daleks and their allies were eliminated in the semi-finals. Team 3637 is proud to have made it as far as we did and we could not have done it without the help of our alliance partners.

Although the Daleks were eliminated from the competition, the day was not over yet! Earlier in the day, Team 3637 won the UL© Pit Safety award which we were elected for by our fellow teams. We also received the UL© Hard Hat award for the top three safest teams of the … More

Early in the morning, the Daleks filed onto the bus filled with excitement despite their fatigue. Mount Olive High School was filled with exuberant students ready for a day of learning and fun! The opening ceremonies built the anticipation for the upcoming matches and at the end of the ceremonies, a special guest made a speech. Who is this special guest you ask? Why non-other than the president of FIRST®, Don Bossi! The team was thrilled to see him and a few of our members even got to talk with him.

The Daleks worked hard and it paid off! At certain points throughout the game we were even ranked #1 out of all 39 teams that attended the competition. By the end of the qualification matches, Team 3637 ranked #3! Never in Dalek history have we made it in the top 8 teams, until now! We were chosen by the #1 ranked team, Team 56 R.O.B.B.E. and Team 613, the NeoWarriors joined us later! The Daleks were ecstatic to be able to work with two great teams and hope to work with them again in the future. In the quarter-finals, Team 3637 and their allies worked diligently and were filled … More

The most wonderful time of the year just passed. No, I’m not talking about Christmas, I’m talking about Brunswick Eruption of course! The off-season event, Brunswick Eruption, was our last competition of the Recycle Rush challenge. The day started at 7 in the morning and the team members were excited despite their fatigue. We started out the qualification matches with our new drivers to help get them prepared for the upcoming season.

Thirty-eight teams showed up, making the entire morning consist of practice and qualification matches. As part of tradition, in the afternoon, one representative from each team went in the middle of the school gym to compete in the “Evil Sundae” challenge. The Evil Sundae is a bit of ice cream with some other ingredients. This year the other ingredients included wasabi, sriracha sauce, hot dogs, chicken hearts, and other things that complement ice cream very nicely. You have to finish this sundae before anyone else. Our representative couldn’t finish it, and we don’t blame him.

Next, the alliance selections took place. We were excited to be picked by the third alliance! Our team members were Team 303, TEST Team, and Team 1923, The MidKnight Inventors. We made it … More

For the first time since 2012, the Daleks made it to the Mid-Atlantic Robotics District Championships!

Having completed our second MAR District event in week three, all we could do was wait. Thankfully, at 45th place out of 121 teams, we qualified to go to Championships at Lehigh. We were very excited and eager to make an impression.

As 45th out of 55 qualifying teams, we tried to keep our expectations modest, since we knew our competition would be the best of the best in the region. However, we were still hoping for a repeat of the great successes we had achieved in our previous events. We had already seen that we had the potential for it.

On Thursday, the first day, we had 2 practice matches and just one elimination match. Our alliance scored 100 points, and we were thrilled! Although we would later see that such scores were typical, our spirits–just like the match scores–were raised as we saw the great things we could accomplish.

Friday and Saturday saw some intense competition from every team. We proved ourselves as a versatile robot, capable of building gray stacks as well as completing co-op, pulling recycling cans from the center … More

Our second competition was at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy, and it sure was exciting!

A few of us went down on Thursday to set up the pit, and on Friday, the matches began. Our robot performed very well, but that was far from our only accomplishment. We also made great use of our new electronic scouting system, allowing our scouts to push data to a pair of tablets that our strategists use in the pits. Our spirit team (including a dancing Dalek) also worked hard, both in the stands and the pits. Watch one of our favorite matches below:

The second day (Saturday) was just as fun as Friday, and Dalek morale was high. Other teams seemed to enjoy our special Pi Day buttons as much as we enjoyed the high scores that we and our alliance members were achieving. At the end of the qualification matches, we were in 13th place, and we were picked by Team 484 and Team 321 for the 8th-seeded alliance. Together, we reached second place in the quarterfinals, but we were knocked out in the semifinals. Nonetheless, we were all extremely proud of our performance, because despite not making it as far, all aspects … More

The Daleks were very excited to participate in our first competition of 2015!

Saturday, the first day of matches, got off to a bit of a rough start. Our tote staging hooks broke in a practice match after getting caught, and we had to hurry to fix them before our qualification matches began. Then, a few low-scoring matches did little to help us in the rankings, and we found ourselves with some ground to make up. However, as the day went on, our drivers got more practice, we developed some strategies, and we were on a few high-scoring alliances.

On Sunday, there were two more qualification matches to go before eliminations started. In the second match, we debuted a large hook that pulled a recycling can off of the center platform, which few other teams had done up until then. We must have made an impression, because we were selected by Team 1403 and Team 1640 for the #1-seeded alliance!

We made use of our hook as well as our tote lifter as our alliance powered through all the way to the finals! Although we didn’t win, we are thrilled to have made it so far, and we offer our … More

It’s been a while since the last competition season, and we were eager to take last year’s robot out for one last spin. The 13th annual Brunswick Eruption gave us the perfect opportunity to do just that. Earlier in the week, we Daleks had worked on the robot a little, fixing some code, wiring, and mechanics, just to make sure the bot was still in fighting shape.

BE is a one-day event, so there were only five qualification matches before the elimination matches. We decided to rotate drivers so more people could gain valuable experience, and the results weren’t too shabby—by lunch, we were 3-2, and in 20th place out of 41 overall.  The morning wasn’t without its frustrations (how on Earth do you break a roller off of a Mecanum wheel if you aren’t actively trying?!), but we faced our setbacks calmly and ended up quickly fixing all our issues.

We were then selected as the 4th team on the 5th-seeded alliance. Along with our partners (Team 25, Team 56, and Team 1302), we advanced through the quarterfinals only to be defeated in the semis. We’d like to extend our hearty congratulations to the winners, and we hope to … More

The Bridgewater-Raritan competition was the Daleks’ last of the season, and it was certainly one to remember.

We arrived Friday night, speedily set up the pit, and made some adjustments on the robot. When we took the field Saturday morning, our robot was sporting new surgical tubing, and a working hot-goal autonomous mode! A few matches in, it would also be fitted with a fresh-out-of-the-box D-link, thanks to a damaged port on the old one that plagued us with communication issues. However, when everything on the robot did work, we were a mighty force on the field. We could shoot high and low, we could go over the truss, our roller scooped up stray balls in seconds, our Mecanum wheels let us maneuver around defenders… in short, we could do almost everything short of catching a truss shot. Our strength was our versatility—whatever role needed to be filled in our alliance, we were up for the task.

Unfortunately, this became reality less often than we had intended. It seemed as if every part of the robot (save the catapult) decided that breaking would be a fantastic idea, and that it would be more fun to break during a match than … More

Team 3637’s first competition was an eventful one. We arrived at Mount Olive High School on Friday to set up the pit and worked until they cut power at 10PM. The next day, we all woke up with competition fever. Since we hadn’t had a principally-offensive robot in years, we were eager to see how we would fare against other strong competitors. In addition, we had an autonomous mode that could attempt a shot, which we hoped would make us a valuable addition to any alliance.

At the end of Saturday, we were 5-6. Our catapult certainly had no shortage of power, but at times we had trouble holding onto the ball. This was soon fixed, thanks to some truly massive zip-ties. Our autonomous mode also gave us a little trouble, but we quickly got it to get us the mobility bonus. The next day, it would be fully up and running, and we would be taking shots. At the end of the day, our robot had made an impression as a versatile machine. The roller worked like a charm to pick up balls in seconds, and by running the motor in reverse, we could send a controlled, easy pass … More

by Ashley S.

The team has had a very busy week. We had our final build last Tuesday and worked all day Saturday, Sunday, and Monday before that. We spent most of the time doing some last minute tasks and cleaning up some of the sharp corners on our robot. The bumper team has been working very steadily to build the frame, glue on the pool noodles, and cover our bumpers. Our button team has also been very hard at work. With the numerous designs and the number that they have made, I am sure there is no way we will run out.

Saturday we spent figuring out the final tasks that the mechanical and electrical team need to complete in order to get the robot running. The catapult system was on the robot and running rather smoothly. We did a lot of pneumatics work for the pick-up system, making sure everything was wired correctly. The programming team worked to get our catapult working off of code and began programming for the solenoids on the pick-up system.

On Sunday, some of us met at a team member’s house to continue running the robot and checking to make sure everything was … More

The Daleks are on a roll…literally! Despite losing several build days due to poor weather, we still made a lot of progress this week, including a nearly-finished drive train. The drive team and the electrical team have been working hard together in the workshop, and by the next build, the wheel base should be fully up and running. Team 3637 is so big that we’ve expanded into nearby rooms—our ball launcher has been flinging with such power that we’ve stationed it in the stairwell. Here’s a gif of it in action!

Meanwhile, the programmers have been working hard in the computer lab across the hall, and the non-technical team has been busy planning fundraisers and designing our competition t-shirt in a physics classroom. Back in the workshop, our ball retrieval mechanism is almost finished, and once we get some parts we ordered, we should be ready to mount it on the robot.

At the rate we’re going, we’ll be very ready by the time February 18th rolls around…and we might have commandeered a few more classrooms along the way.

Click here to see more pictures.… More

The Bridgewater-Raritan Competition was full of downs and some very high ups.

On Saturday, the first day of actual competition, the Daleks were 2-7-0. At first, one might think it was a disappointing day. But there were a lot of good things as well. We had new pit walls, which looked sharp in team colors. We had a lot of fan support, which we didn’t have nearly as much of last year. And most importantly, we had also redesigned part of our climber, and we were confident that we could contribute valuable points to our alliances. Sure enough, in match 43, we made it to the top of the pyramid–a feat only accomplished by one other team during the entire competition!

We all went home happy about having finally achieved our season-long goal: to get to the top. We would never do it again.

At the end of the day, both figuratively and literally, we had a very inconsistent robot. We only accomplished a handful of 10-point climbs, a few 20-point climbs, and that one amazing trip to the top. But our amazing senior leaders showed incredible strength–they worked nonstop throughout the competition, even when we were about to go … More

When we arrived at TCNJ on Thursday night to set up the pit, we still had not yet tested our climber with the rest of the robot. We knew we were going to face a big challenge the next morning, but we were determined to face it with strength and resolve.

On Friday, as soon as the pits opened, we went to work attaching it. We knew we had to be fast, since there was a lot to do in the short time before our first match. We didn’t even put our dumper on the robot in an attempt to make it easier to reach the climber. Despite our efforts to work quickly, some code refusing to deploy still forced us to miss our first two matches (one of which our alliance partners were able to win without us).

Even once we got on the field, we were still plagued with breakdowns, mechanical failures, and whatever other issues the robot gods decided to throw at us. In one of our matches, we were able to get off the ground and score 10 points for our alliance, pushing us to a 102-100 victory. However, the next match in which we tried … More

We did a lot of work this past week, and it’s really paying off.

Some of it was non-technical, like designing a newsletter for our sponsors, ordering parts, touching up artwork, and organizing our finances. Some of it was technical as well. Our accomplishments include finalizing bumper designs, prototyping, working in CAD, teaching useful skills to our newer members, and getting the computers to talk to the cRIO and spin the motors. (Previously, we had been having issues making the motors move, and we weren’t sure why. But upon discovering that one of the modules of the cRIO was bad, our coders were relieved that it wasn’t something they had done!)

Anyway, Week 3 of build was very productive for us. However, we’re still very aware that time is always of the essence, so we will continue to work hard during the next weeks to finish the robot. Keep up the good work, Daleks!

Pictures can be cycled faster by clicking on them.… More

The new school year brought some new changes for our team, including an offseason event: the 11th Brunswick Eruption, hosted by Raider Robotix on November 17.  After so long without using the robot, we thought it would be fun to take it for a spin one more time.

We arrived with our robot at the competition at 7:00 in the morning. We quickly set up our pit and signed up for a practice match to warm up. After the opening ceremonies, the competition got started. However, the qualification matches did not start off well. Plagued by communication errors, our robot could barely move, and we lost our first three matches. However, after taking a match off to work on the problem without being distracted by having to change bumpers, we started to turn our day around. The remaining two teams on our alliance won without us, we fixed the communication problem, and we won the next match as well.

But after losing our final match and breaking a chain in the process, we found ourselves at the bottom of the standings, in a 7-way tie for 23rd out of 29 teams. As the top eight teams began to make … More

After three days of competition, the MAR Championship (held at the Liacouras Center in Philadelphia) is over! For us, this also means the end of the season, but I know all of us are very proud of our achievements.

Thursday the 12th was the first day of competition (a few of us went and dropped off the robot at our pit the day before). The event started in the afternoon, and we only had one match.

Friday the 13th was when most of the action happened. We started off slow, losing our first three matches, but then we heated up, winning matches and scoring from Coopertition. By the afternoon, we had recovered from our poor start, usually staying around 15th or so in the standings.

Today was the last day of the event, and we had three matches. We won the first two, but we lost the last one, and failed to earn any Coopertition bonus as well. This hurt our position in the standings significantly. After all the qualification matches were over, the top eight teams took turns picking other teams for their alliances. Being in 32nd place, we were obviously not one of the eight alliance captains, and … More

Another competition is over, and it was a great one!

The first day (not counting Friday, when we dropped off our robot) was a fun one. We started off a little slow, but eventually heated up, at one point winning three of our matches in a row. Unlike at the Rutgers competition, there were no mechanical failures this time, due to careful adjustments we had made this past week to prevent them. We ended the day high on the leaderboard.

On Sunday, the second day, we also did very well. Ending up in 6th place overall, we were one of the top eight teams, which meant that we could pick our alliance members. These alliances would stay with each other for the rest of the elimination matches, which were in a best-of-three single elimination format. We chose Team 75, the RoboRaiders, as well as Team 555, Montclair Robotics.

Unfortunately, we were once again eliminated in the first round, but our excellent qualifying position meant that we have qualified for the Mid-Atlantic Robotics Regional Championship, which will be held from April 12-14 in Philadelphia. Great work, Daleks!

Pictures can be cycled faster by clicking on them.… More

As promised, here are some pictures from the Rutgers competition. There are also videos of our matches on our Youtube Channel. Credit to Ethan Spitz for the great videos!

Pictures can be cycled faster by clicking on them.… More