FAQs

What do we do at TKO?

• TKO aims to teach rookies and new members how to build a full-fledged robot, learning valuable, life-long skills along the way. Members can learn how to machine and manufacture parts, program a robot, or even how to market a team successfully.

What is the commitment like?

• The number of meetings we have varies, depending on whether we are currently in the off-season or build season.
  The off-season runs for the entirety of the first semester (September – December). During the off-season, our FRC team meets typically 2 times a week: on Tuesdays and Thursdays with optional meetings on occassion, and our intramural team meets Mondays and Thursdays. The meetings range from around 3 – 6:30 pm for FRC and 3-5:30 for our Intramural Team. Specific days of the week to meet are decided at the beginning of each school year, to best work around the majority of the team’s schedules.
  Build season lasts for six weeks (the majority of January – February). During build season, FRC meets on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. On school nights, we meet from 3 – 5:30 pm, Friday 3-8 pm and on Saturdays from 9 am – 5 pm. The more frequent and extended meeting times allow our team sufficient time to plan, design, and build a successful competition robot.
  Around mid-March, the number of meetings will decrease, likely reverting back to the off-season schedule.
• Members are required to be present for two-thirds of the meeting time in order to facilitate their education and participation in the team.

Tell me more about competition.

• TKO participates in the FIRST Robotics Competition, an international robotics competition for high school teams. Each competition season (which starts in January), TKO plans, designs, and builds a competition robot built to play and succeed at a game of FIRST’s creation. The rules and specifications for each year’s game are different, and our robot for each game must reflect those rules. In March or early April, we compete with hundreds of other FIRST robotics teams with the aim of winning!
• This year, we have implemented a two-team system, with an FRC team and our MIR ( Mitty Intramural Robotics) Team . Only members of the FRC team will be working on our competition robot. For more information on the split, visit the Rookie Training page.

How is the team organized? How are the positions chosen?

• TKO is headed by the President of the team. Our V.P. of Engineering oversees all technical aspects of the team. All Departments have an individual Head who manages projects and productivity. Each year, the leadership team is chosen through a deliberate election process, where prospective students send in an application, are interviewed by a electionary committee, and then are placed on a student ballot.

• Additionally, the team is split into an FRC team and MIR team. The FRC team is the team that builds robots for the FIRST Robotics Competition, primarily made up of upper-class veterans and leads. The MIR team builds small robots for competition within the team and is mostly comprised of incoming members and last year’s new members. The purpose of the MIR team is to prepare students with all the skills to construct a competition level robot.

What resources will each department require?

• All members require ANSI approved (Z87.1+) safety glasses, a mindset for teamwork, and a positive attitude. For members in the Programming department, a laptop is needed as well.