About this project
Hello Kickstarter!
This project brings together 4 exciting and fun things:
- The Blarglefish - FIRST Robotics Challenge (FRC) Team #1255, Baytown, TX
- Supporting STEM Education: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics for High School Robotics Students.
- Puzzometry Hex - A brand new member of the Puzzometry Family available EXCLUSIVELY through this Kickstarter Project!
- FIRST SteamWorks - The new game for the 2017 FRC Season! (scroll down for Game Animation video)
For the past 17 years I've been mentoring high school students who are members of Houston-area FIRST (www.FIRSTInspires.org) Robotics Teams. FIRST Robotics is among the very few programs that provides hands-on, real-world engineering experience to high school students, and in my opinion, the BEST way to accomplish that goal. A large number of the students I've had the pleasure to work with over the years have grown up to be engineers, scientists, mathematicians, teachers and creative countless other professionals. These are many of the same professions that are celebrated by the Kickstarter and Maker Communities. FIRST Robotics is a program that I have spent thousands of hours of my time as a volunteer between 2001 and now. I'm not writing these things as a way to pat myself on the back, but rather as a way to let you know that this program is something that I truly believe works to help today's students become tomorrow innovators, problem solvers and industry leaders.
Due to the support that you, our previous backers, have provided to Team Puzzometry during our last Kickstarter Campaign, we were not only able to bring over 3000 fun, unique and creative puzzles to puzzle-lovers all over the world, but I was also able to contribute some of the profits into a direct sponsorship of an area FIRST Robotics team. That team is The Blarglefish, FIRST Robotics Team #1255 from Baytown, TX. You can see that Puzzometry is listed an official sponsor of The Blarglefish, as shown on the team shirt from the 2015 and 2016 seasons.
- ALL OF THE PROFITS OF THIS CAMPAIGN WILL BE DONATED TOWARD THE BLARGLEFISH ROBOTICS TEAM EXPENSES.
The goal of this Kickstarter Campaign is to help further the success that our students have already attained. Your support will help students learn basic business skills by experiencing, first-hand, this campaign from Launch through shipment of rewards. Along the way, your support will also help The Blarglefish have a successful season in the shop during our 2017 Build Season (January 7- February 21), but also during the 2017 FIRST Robotics Competition Season that immediately follows the Build Season. Your support will help to ensure the future success of our current students!
Your previous support of Puzzometry has been truly amazing and much appreciated! As a way to thank you for your previous support and for whatever support you may provide for this project, Team Puzzometry has developed a brand new puzzle available EXCLUSIVELY through this Kickstarter Campaign. The new puzzle is called Puzzometry Hex!
Just like our previous puzzles, Puzzometry Hex is a beautiful and challenging puzzle made of laser-cut, 1/4" acrylic. Hex has 12 unique pieces and will provide plenty of puzzling challenges for the puzzle lover in all of us. Puzzometry Hex has the exact same outside dimensions as our Original Puzzometry and also Puzzometry Squares. Like our previous puzzles, Hex pieces are made from tessellations of basic geometric shapes, in this case, as you might expect, the shape is hexagons!
One cool feature of this campaign is that Puzzometry Hex rewards from this campaign will be engraved with The Blarglefish branding on some of the pieces and The Blarglefish team name along the top of the puzzle frame. We don't yet have pictures of the engraved team branding because we're still exploring different options for that, but you can expect to see those in upcoming project updates. The engravings will be strategically designed such that they will provide no help with solving the challenging puzzle.....new puzzle, but the same extremely difficult challenge that you've come to expect from Puzzometry!
Without further ado, here is PUZZOMETRY HEX!
Team Puzzometry is very pleased to be able to bring Puzzometry Hex into the Puzzometry Family, but the the primary goal of this campaign is not to just grow the Puzzometry Brand, but rather to help our students become successful not only during the 2017 FIRST Robotics Season, but throughout the rest of their careers. I hope that you will support this new Puzzometry Kickstarter Campaign as enthusiastically as you did our previous one!
Support The Blarglefish as we develop winning students and build a winning robot as well!
Your support will help the Baytown, TX GCCISD (Goose Creek Consolidated Independent School District) High School FIRST Robotics Team (FRC Team #2936) design, prototype and build a fully-functional robot for the 2017 Season. Our backers will help us do that!
We are in our 14th year as participants in the FIRST Robotics Competitions. It is quite expensive to maintain our team due to competition entry fees, buying robot parts (motors, servos, computers, gears, raw material, etc.), travel and other expenses. The money spent for these items is ultimately used to help us 'build' future scientists, mathematicians and engineers.
Our students are learning real-world engineering skills while building the robot. The students are exposed to real-world challenges, such as:
System Design: understanding requirements, design considerations
Electrical engineering: circuits, wiring, soldering, etc.
Computer programming: Labview, HTML
Mechanical engineering: motors, gears, servos, hardware
System integration: teamwork, system testing
Prototyping: 3D modelling, manufacturing, lessons learned, etc.
Shop Skills: machine tools, table saws, drill presses, etc
As you know, these skills are the same type of skills that Makers and Kickstarters LIKE YOU already have. It is our goal that the Blarglefish students will become tomorrow's innovators!
Your help toward accomplishing these goals is greatly appreciated.
During the just the past 2 seasons, the Blarglefish have won the following awards:
Tesla Division Champions at the 2015 FIRST Robotics World Championship in St Louis, MO.
Industrial Safety Award Sponsored by Underwriters Laboratories - 2015 Alamo Regional
Semifinalists at the 2015 Alamo Regional
Quarterfinalists at the 2015 Lone Star Regional
Imagery Award In honor of Jack Kamen at 2016 Alamo Regional
Quarterfinalists at 2016 Alamo Regional
Imagery Award in honor of Jack Kamen at 2016 Lone Star Regional
Semifinalist at The 2016 Remix
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Welcome to FIRST SteamWorks!
The game challenge for each season is completely different from one year to the next, the following video explains the challenge that our students will have to overcome during the 2017 season..FIRST SteamWorks!
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One of the Backer rewards for this project is this cool Blarglefish Themed safety goggles retention strap!
We hope you'll back this project and we're sure you'll enjoy our new puzzle, Puzzometry Hex! If you're looking to buy one of our 3 other Puzzometry puzzles, please go to:
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IF YOU ARE AN INTERNATIONAL BACKER AND YOUR COUNTRY IS NOT CURRENTLY LISTED AS A SHIPPING OPTION ON THE REWARD LEVEL THAT YOU'RE INTERESTED IN, PLEASE SEND US A MESSAGE AND WE'LL ADD YOUR COUNTRY.
Risks and challenges
We have set reasonable goals for delivering the Backer Rewards toward the end of our build and competition season. Our build season is very intense and quite busy. We'll be very active in prototyping, designing, building and testing our competition robot during this time. The Kickstarter rewards will be delivered during the weeks between our competitions and after our last competition of the season. If we qualify for the FIRST Robotics Championship (4/19-4/22), our preparation for that event may push back some of the deliveries slightly to May, at the very latest.
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