Overdrive:

In the fall of 2007, Reid Brechner, a freshman at Messalonskee High School, went to Miss Luce, a math and computer science teacher who worked at Messalonskee High School, and asked if she wanted to help him start a robotics team. Of course, she said "YES!". Little did she know what this one word would mean.
In the rookie season, the team had no idea what they were doing. They started with less than 10 students and two mentors, all of whom had a lot of enthusiasm, but not much direction. At their very first game reveal in Manchester, there were some notions about being overwhelmed, but mostly the team was just excited to finally get started. Two things became very apparent in the first few design meetings: One, they needed some engineers and two, six weeks was not going to be enough time.
However, the team had a very positive experience at its first Regional Competition for FIRST Overdrive in Manchester, NH, competing in the quarterfinals and winning the Rookie Inspiration Award!
In the rookie season, the team had no idea what they were doing. They started with less than 10 students and two mentors, all of whom had a lot of enthusiasm, but not much direction. At their very first game reveal in Manchester, there were some notions about being overwhelmed, but mostly the team was just excited to finally get started. Two things became very apparent in the first few design meetings: One, they needed some engineers and two, six weeks was not going to be enough time.
However, the team had a very positive experience at its first Regional Competition for FIRST Overdrive in Manchester, NH, competing in the quarterfinals and winning the Rookie Inspiration Award!
Lunacy:

Starting the second year meant new challenges with fundraising, community service projects, and recruiting more members. The team decided to attend a different Regional Competition to play Lunacy, and chose Boston to spread their wings.
The team left Boston wanting more...another regional? Not this year, but the solution was off-season events! BattleCry at WPI, Mayhem in Merrimack, and Bear Brawl all provided the team with an opportunity to make new alliances and introduce more team members to the competition arena.
The team left Boston wanting more...another regional? Not this year, but the solution was off-season events! BattleCry at WPI, Mayhem in Merrimack, and Bear Brawl all provided the team with an opportunity to make new alliances and introduce more team members to the competition arena.
Breakaway:

Breakaway was our Break Through year. Community support and aggressive fundraising allowed us to attend seven events including our first trip to the World Championship held in Atlanta, Georgia.
At the Boston Regional Competition, we got our first taste of winning with our first Finalist Award in our short history! We were the third pick of our alliance, and we made some great friends and partners in FRC Team 1511, Rolling Thunder.
This year also marked our first of many Spirit Awards. At Battlecry 11, our PA-POW cheer was born! In the off-season events that followed, we were recognized as a spirited, competitive team.
At the Boston Regional Competition, we got our first taste of winning with our first Finalist Award in our short history! We were the third pick of our alliance, and we made some great friends and partners in FRC Team 1511, Rolling Thunder.
This year also marked our first of many Spirit Awards. At Battlecry 11, our PA-POW cheer was born! In the off-season events that followed, we were recognized as a spirited, competitive team.
Logomotion:

The Logomotion season saw our team roster soar to almost 40 members! We set a goal during Opening Weekend of making it to Einstein and never looked back. Although we didn't quite make it to Einstein, we did attend five events, including our first season of two Regional competitions. The mini-bot really taught our team a lot about the importance of the endgame. We definitely under-estimated its importance in the beginning of the season. The challenge of the deployment system was definitely a fun one to take on!
About half way through this build season, we realized we had enough resources (time and money) to build a twin robot. Although this is not a new idea for any team, this project really elevated our team to a new level. Not only did it allow much more student involvement, it also provided us with a robot that we could demonstrate to other interested teams.
Logomotion also proved to be another award-studded season for us, including another Finalist award at the Boston Regional competition. We also were recognized three times with the Team Spirit Award, as well as our first Coopertition Award at the Boston Regional. We were finalists at all 3 off-season events we attended: Battlecry 12, Beantown Blitz, and River Rage. This season was also the first time we submitted for the Chairman's Award. Although we didn't earn the award at WPI, we were recognized at River Rage with the Legacy Award.
With our twin robot, we had an opportunity to invite a pre-rookie team to compete with us at off-season events. It only took one meeting for us to find our perfect match at Spruce Mountain High School. They were already a competitive Vex team, so taking the jump to FRC made sense! They came with us to Beantown Blitz to get a taste of FRC, and then kept our twin robot all summer to learn everything they could. They attended Mainely SPIRIT and River Rage using our twin robot, so they were ready to roll when Kickoff 2012 came around.
About half way through this build season, we realized we had enough resources (time and money) to build a twin robot. Although this is not a new idea for any team, this project really elevated our team to a new level. Not only did it allow much more student involvement, it also provided us with a robot that we could demonstrate to other interested teams.
Logomotion also proved to be another award-studded season for us, including another Finalist award at the Boston Regional competition. We also were recognized three times with the Team Spirit Award, as well as our first Coopertition Award at the Boston Regional. We were finalists at all 3 off-season events we attended: Battlecry 12, Beantown Blitz, and River Rage. This season was also the first time we submitted for the Chairman's Award. Although we didn't earn the award at WPI, we were recognized at River Rage with the Legacy Award.
With our twin robot, we had an opportunity to invite a pre-rookie team to compete with us at off-season events. It only took one meeting for us to find our perfect match at Spruce Mountain High School. They were already a competitive Vex team, so taking the jump to FRC made sense! They came with us to Beantown Blitz to get a taste of FRC, and then kept our twin robot all summer to learn everything they could. They attended Mainely SPIRIT and River Rage using our twin robot, so they were ready to roll when Kickoff 2012 came around.

The team really wanted to find a better way to spread the FIRST message, so when the opportunity appeared to host Maine's FIRST off-season event, we jumped at the chance! Mainely SPIRIT was held on Saturday, September 24th! At this event, we had 3 pre-rookie teams participate! All 3 of those teams are participating in the 2012 season, and this event provided them with the opportunity to learn all about FIRST.
Rebound Rumble

The Rebound Rumble season was definitely our best season yet! It started with the excitement of 3 rookie teams in our area: FRC Team 3930 at Spruce Mountain High School, FRC Team 4041 at Gardiner High School, and FRC Team 4042 at Erskine Academy. We wanted to welcome our new pre-rookie friends to the season, so we hosted a Team Training Event in December 2011 to prepare. We provided training on electrical design, mechanical design basics, and programming. We also introduced the other teams to the Kinect Software.
All four teams spent many of the Saturdays during build season working together at our workspace. We worked together fixing design challenges, balancing on the bridges, and troubleshooting programming problems. We even decided to attend the WPI Regional together, and all four teams had a strong showing. It was so much fun for us to be able to share our love of engineering with new FRC teams! For the first time, we got to share our knowledge, as well as learn from other teams in person. This really challenged us to be at our best all season.
Our most proud moment of 2012 came at the WPI Regional Competition, where we won the Engineering Inspiration Award. We were very excited about this award, as it represented the commitment we constantly make to inspire others, from other FRC teams to boyscouts to young girls interested in robotics. We worked hard to spread the FIRST message!
At the Boston Regional, we took on one of our biggest challenges to date. After the WPI regional, we were really unhappy with our robot performance. Once that regional was over, we re-designed our robot to better interact with the field elements (the bridge and the balls), as well as improve maneuverability. When we arrived at the Boston Regional, we completely rebuilt our robot!
The Engineering Inspiration Award included an invitation to the World Championships in St. Louis! After the Boston Regional, we worked on creating a PID control for our shooter. At the World Championships, all the pieces came together, and we finished in 3rd place in the Archimedes division. When asked what the World Championships were like, the best answer came from our Human Player Robert, when he said, "It was literally all of the things." This sentiment definitely sums up our season!
The off-season included 4 more events for us. We attended Battlecry 13, Mayhem in Merrimack, where we won the Cotton-Eyed Joe Award, Mainely SPIRIT, and River Rage, where we were Finalists and had the Best Robot Costume for our chicken.
Mainely SPIRIT was another exciting time, as we increased our participation from 11 teams at Logomotion to 16 teams at Rebound Rumble! This included 3 pre-rookie teams, 2 of which started FRC teams in 2013. We are so excited to continue to inspire new teams in our region, and we hope to continue this growth. To this end, we remain in almost constant contact with our neighboring teams to share resources.
We look forward to another amazing season in 2013!
Ultimate Ascent

There are definitely moments in all of our lives that we can point to and say "that was a turning point". For our team, we had several of those moments during the Ultimate Ascent season.
Our excitement for FIRST continued to spread to our surrounding communities, as we started four more FRC teams this season. One of the most exciting things with these new teams is that one of our alumni became a mentor for one of the rookie teams! This created an instant friendship between us for the entire season. During the build season, we had the opportunity to have a rookie team share our build space. This was such an amazing learning opportunity for both of us!
Our training day became an annual event. We expanded the day to include a programming session by Brad Miller from WPI, as well as presentations from other Maine coaches. This event was very well attended, including all four of the pre-rookie teams, as well as all three of the previous year's rookies.
At the WPI Regional Competition, we had one of the most efficient loading systems for the Frisbees. We also had an amazing passive 10 point hanger for the tower. We were very happy with our performance of finishing as the fourth place alliance captain and being eliminated in the semi-finals. An exciting moment happened when we won the Entrepreneurship Award for our amazing Business Plan! Our Business Plan was so successful that we were asked to include it in the FRC Fundraising Toolkit! Thank you FRC Team 2789 TEXplosion for the inspiration!
One of the most exciting moments for our communities was the inaugural Pine Tree Regional Competition that was held in Lewiston, less than an hour from our hometown! All of our friends and families could finally see firsthand the intensity of a regional competition. It was even more exciting when we finished the competition in first place! All of our dreams came true when the final scores were shown and we were given a Blue Banner! This was truly turning point for us, as we were Regional Champions! In a perhaps even more exciting moment, we were also awarded the Engineering Inspiration Award. On top of that, one of our senior students, Sabine Fontaine, was named a Regional Dean's List Finalist!
Our excitement for FIRST continued to spread to our surrounding communities, as we started four more FRC teams this season. One of the most exciting things with these new teams is that one of our alumni became a mentor for one of the rookie teams! This created an instant friendship between us for the entire season. During the build season, we had the opportunity to have a rookie team share our build space. This was such an amazing learning opportunity for both of us!
Our training day became an annual event. We expanded the day to include a programming session by Brad Miller from WPI, as well as presentations from other Maine coaches. This event was very well attended, including all four of the pre-rookie teams, as well as all three of the previous year's rookies.
At the WPI Regional Competition, we had one of the most efficient loading systems for the Frisbees. We also had an amazing passive 10 point hanger for the tower. We were very happy with our performance of finishing as the fourth place alliance captain and being eliminated in the semi-finals. An exciting moment happened when we won the Entrepreneurship Award for our amazing Business Plan! Our Business Plan was so successful that we were asked to include it in the FRC Fundraising Toolkit! Thank you FRC Team 2789 TEXplosion for the inspiration!
One of the most exciting moments for our communities was the inaugural Pine Tree Regional Competition that was held in Lewiston, less than an hour from our hometown! All of our friends and families could finally see firsthand the intensity of a regional competition. It was even more exciting when we finished the competition in first place! All of our dreams came true when the final scores were shown and we were given a Blue Banner! This was truly turning point for us, as we were Regional Champions! In a perhaps even more exciting moment, we were also awarded the Engineering Inspiration Award. On top of that, one of our senior students, Sabine Fontaine, was named a Regional Dean's List Finalist!

It was also very rewarding for us when one of our rookie teams received the Highest Rookie Seed Award, finishing in 7th place overall, and becoming the fifth place alliance captain. Another one of our rookie teams received the Rookie All-Star Award, which meant that we got to share a bus on our ride to St. Louis for the World Championships!
We knew we needed to make some changes to be more successful at the World Championships, so we changed our shooter wheels with the guidance of FRC Team 2168, the Aluminum Falcons! We also changed our drive train in an effort to gain important maneuverability on the field. Although the results were not what we had hoped, we were very proud of our success. Our rookie team did extremely well, and we had a great time cheering for them through the Curie Quarterfinals!
One of our most proud moments came in June when we were invited to compete at the Indiana Robotics Invitational in Indianapolis, Indiana. Being one of only 72 FRC teams invited to this event, we knew we needed to make major changes to our robot. We had to lose our efficient loading system and our impressive 10 point hanger in order to gain the ability to go under the pyramid, but this gave us the opportunity to learn about pneumatic systems. We felt as though these sacrifices were worth the risk. After the first day of competition, we knew we had made the right design decisions when we were undefeated. We finished the competition as the 5th place alliance captain, and we finished the tournament as semifinalists. It was an incredible weekend for Infinite Loop!
We knew we needed to make some changes to be more successful at the World Championships, so we changed our shooter wheels with the guidance of FRC Team 2168, the Aluminum Falcons! We also changed our drive train in an effort to gain important maneuverability on the field. Although the results were not what we had hoped, we were very proud of our success. Our rookie team did extremely well, and we had a great time cheering for them through the Curie Quarterfinals!
One of our most proud moments came in June when we were invited to compete at the Indiana Robotics Invitational in Indianapolis, Indiana. Being one of only 72 FRC teams invited to this event, we knew we needed to make major changes to our robot. We had to lose our efficient loading system and our impressive 10 point hanger in order to gain the ability to go under the pyramid, but this gave us the opportunity to learn about pneumatic systems. We felt as though these sacrifices were worth the risk. After the first day of competition, we knew we had made the right design decisions when we were undefeated. We finished the competition as the 5th place alliance captain, and we finished the tournament as semifinalists. It was an incredible weekend for Infinite Loop!

Our off-season events were also a huge success for us. Battlecry 14 was tons of fun for us, as it represented our fifth year anniversary! We also attended Beantown Blitz, where we were happy to be awarded the Knock Your Sox Off Award! Continuing our three year tradition, we won Best Robot Costume for our Plowie Look-Alike at River Rage! We also came home as River Rage Champions!
Mainely SPIRIT grew to an incredible 22 robots this year! It was so much fun having all of the Maine teams hanging out, as well as 5 pre-rookie teams! We are so excited to be part of such an amazing community, where there is so much excitement and support for FIRST Robotics!
2014 promises to be a GREAT season! We are excited to become a member of the New England District!
Mainely SPIRIT grew to an incredible 22 robots this year! It was so much fun having all of the Maine teams hanging out, as well as 5 pre-rookie teams! We are so excited to be part of such an amazing community, where there is so much excitement and support for FIRST Robotics!
2014 promises to be a GREAT season! We are excited to become a member of the New England District!