The name of our team is the N.E.W. Apple Corps.  Our team is composed of students, mentors and teachers from throughout the Fox Valley area.  Each year we compete in the FIRST Robotics Competition.  We are currently one of over 1,300 teams throughout the country participating in FIRST Robotics.

Each year FIRST reveals a totally new challenge--a new game for which teams must design and build a robot.  The time span from the game's announcement at kickoff to the required ship date is a mere six weeks, meaning that teams must be able to brainstorm, build and test their robot quickly and efficiently.  This year's game is called "Overdrive."  Check out NASA's FRC page for a video explanation of how the game is played.  Here is our robot pictured at the left:  TOBOR X.

This year our team will attend two regional events as well as the national event in Atlanta.  Here is a picture of the field from the Wisconsin Regional in Milwaukee.  2007's game (pictured at right) had alliances made up of three teams each.  Both the blue and red alliances are trying to score as many points as possible by hanging tubes on the center rack.  Bonus points were also given for raising your allies off the ground at the end.

Here is our robot (Team 93 on the left) allied with team 2052 and team 2194 in a practice match.  Three students and a mentor are chosen from each team to control the robot (seen here behind the wall.)  Two students man the controls as the mentors coaches and one student acts as the human player, a role that allows the student to throw tubes to the robot or even onto the rack if possible.

Here is our team as part of the red alliance, intensely focusing on a match.

Even though this isn't battle bots, between every match repairs and modifications need to take place.  Such adjustments take place in an area called "the pit".  Here students and mentors have access to a wide range of tools and spare parts to ensure that the robot keeps running smoothly.

Between each match there is usually some downtime, so why not have the team mascots out on the floor dancing for everyone's entertainment?  Here two of our apples are dancing the...well...they are doing some sort of dance.

Last but not least, here is a video of our robot in action!  Enjoy!