Week 4 newsletter 2026

Written by Isaac Yong

General News

This is a very exciting week for Chicken Bot Pie! With the build team having finished the physical components of our robot, our programming team is working hard to get our robot up and running before our Knight Krawler week zero competition on February 28. We are ecstatic to kick off our season with this first competition.

Programming

With the Knight Krawler competition approaching, the programming subteam has only a week to get the robot up and running. Having written hundreds of lines of code before even touching the robot, Chicken Bot Pie is in good shape to run our robot at its best by next week. They are currently tidying up and trouble shooting the shooting control mechanism for our robot. Additionally, they have been working with strategy members in order to finish our scouting app. Our programming captain has been providing great wisdom to our newer members. This troubleshooting practice is helping our programmers develop a keen eye for errors while honing their ability to struggle successfully. Not all code runs successfully on the first try, and having our programmers overcome these problems is doing wonders for our team's resilience. They plan on having a fully running robot by next week, before Knight Krawler, and we are excited to see our robot shed its feathers. 

Build & Design

The build subteam has finished building our robot. Currently, they are troubleshooting and making tweaks here and there to ensure our robot is ready to roll. To get our robot primed for competition, the build team is splitting up the workload. Caden, Blair, and Arnav are working on adjusting the intake system, Paxton is fault-testing the shooting system on the robot, and Oskar and Aaron are in the midst of creating bumpers for our robot. The upperclassmen are supervising and instructing the whole process, jumping in wherever needed. The great brainstorming and planning from our build team is evidently paying off big time.

Operations

     The operations subteam is hard at work writing more emails to potential sponsors. We recently presented in-person to Northern Tool Company, Culver’s, Noodles & Company, and Snuffy’s to start. Although we were unable to secure any direct sponsorships (yet that is), we were able to reach them through email. As for our previous sponsorship emails, we have yet to receive a response, and we are patiently waiting. In the meantime, our Operations captain, Connor, has been communicating with our local First Lego League teams in order to secure our first few outreach opportunities. Given a tight deadline, we were able to get our impact award and executive summaries completed and submitted on February 12th. We are currently working on finalizing our brand new website design. The release date is currently set for next week! Stay tuned!

Strategy

Our strategy subteam has finished the playbook, which outlines all of our competition strategies. We share these strategies with our alliance members in order to effectively communicate our robot path, present scoring strategies, and simplify our game plans. While half of the strategy team is working with the programmers to wrap up the scouting app point scoring system, our other members are working on crafting a display case and trolley cart for our robot. When we enter our competitions, we want to wow the audience. Who wants a masterpiece of a robot on a lunch cart? An immaculate robot calls for an immaculate presentation and great entrance. Finally, in preparation for our competition, our strategy team has selected the human players, operator, driver, and drive coach for our team. They have been hard at work training and preparing for the big day coming next week. 

Thank you!!