January 29, 2007-- It is midway into the building season for Team 812 and thousands of other FIRST Robotics team across the world. This usually means things are getting a little bit more fast paced and robots are shaping up from piles of scraps and wires. For Team 812 members, who are in school until 4:oo pm every weekday, it means staying late on campus everyday until 5:30pm and even 7:30pm. "Around the last week of most of our building seasons," says senior member, Trang Dinh, "we were all staying until midnight, frantically drilling holes and practically glueing on robot components. This year is promising to be different--we're at a very good building pace!"

Team 812 works this year towards their 6th FIRST robot. Their approach to the Rack 'N' Roll challenge posed by FIRST will be a ramp-based robot that will be able to load both of their alliance robots for an extra 60 points at the end of the match. Subsequently, this year's robot will also be a defense robot, helping their alliance by blocking the opponents' robots from scoring or from going to their homezone.

Thinking ahead, Team 812 also has a Plan B if the ramp robot does not work out as planned. A few team members have been working on an arm mechanism which can grip the lifesaver-like game pieces from the inside holes.

Having no machine shop at Preuss, students in Team 812 have been diligently working in their advisor's (Mr. Rupert) math classroom. Most recently, the team had a "Welding & Barbeque Party" at Mr. Rupert's home where--no surprise--students and mentors welded together the robot frame and chassis, then ate delicious bbq.

"Building season has gotten me so excited to see the outcome of our work. After all the callous hands and sweat, the robot will be like the team's baby. And competitions! I'm so excited to see how we do now!" exclaims sophomore, Catalina Santos, a FIRST first-timer. She reflects the team's overall sentiment about this FIRST season.