Welcome to 

Byte Sized Robotics 

2026 Year

October 2026

This month we have been busy with more updates to Debby the demo bot, setting up for the Homecoming Parade, navigating FIRST Fare at PSU in downtown Portland, taking a soldering class at PCC,  and Girls Gen at the beginning of the month.  We are still taking all of the safety tests to work on shop tools as well.  We produced made to order team off season shirts sporting Bytebot eating ramen (a popular Team Member activity around the shop) and a cyber tree to start thinking of the FIRST theme related to biodiversity and technology.

September 2026

School has begun.  We still meet Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3:30-6.  This year, four new mentors have joined us: Ed Johnson in Programming and Controls; Cole Erhardt, a returning alumnus in Mechanical and CAD,  Joey Morton, a returning alumnus in Mechanical and the Mills; and Lukas Bell, a returning alumnus in Mechanical, Batteries, and Shop Management.  Welcome to our new Mentors!  

The students will be participating in Club Rush to welcome students back to school, and we will be learning CAD, learning shop tools, cleaning the shop, working on projects that we need to finish from the summer, filling the new robot cart and retasking the old cart for our demo work, and generally gearing up for the new season in January.   We have also been getting a crash course in the new bumper design with foam sheets instead of pool noodles and working on Debby the demo bot (adding a second battery and more drive cim motors for parade and fair use.

Summer 2026

We have lots of learning happening this summer at the shop.  Programming, Mechanical, Electrical, Business, Milling, CAD....  Oh My.

June 2026

Alumni Teaching: 

We continue to learn to use the mills in the shop with the help of one of our Alumni Teachers on Thursdays.  We are also learning MasterCAM and CAD programs with another alumni mentor on Tuesdays.  Two of our long-time mentors are starting the inventory and organization process in the shop itself this month, with help from some of our team.  

Seniors!

We will be losing 3 of our Seniors for a week or so as they prepare for graduation.  Once that is complete, a couple of them will be back for the summer to help train our next gen of robotics team in Drive, mechanical, programming, design, and strategy.  For those who are off to other parts and other things, we wish you all the best!  Best of luck and stay in touch!

Alumni info:

Over this summer, a couple of our mentors are working on a way to capture Alumni as they go out in the world.  We will be creating a webpage that holds some of our former students' stats and testimonials.  Stay tuned for that!  If you are a student, alumnus, or mentor alumnus of Byte Sized, drop us a line or send us a video (2 min max) about what helped you from robotics, how your time with us focused or changed your view, or whatever you like.  THANKS! frc4662coach@gmail.com 

Outreach and media packet:

Last month we had a demo at the local elementary school.  We want to make that process easier to schedule with a media packet.  We are always looking for good ways to get STEAM thinking out into our community.  We are working on a media and event packet to be created this summer to showcase Byte Sized as a student hands-on learn-by-doing activity.  If you have ideas, want to help with video and print production, are excited to edit, or just want to help, drop the admin coach a line, and we can set up a meeting in late June to get started.

Outreach Season March - June 2026

The off-season for robotics is when we show the greater community what we do. Along with less stress from a looming competition deadline, it has been a fun time in the shop. We started learning machining and CAD/CAM from two Byte-Sized Alumni. We had a presentation on May 8th in the first- and second-period physics classes, showing how physics and robotics are linked.  We had a great chance to play with the robot outside on a sunny day. 

Some of the programming and mechanical team have been working hard on getting an old robot graciously donated to us by Logger Bots back to its former glory.  Cleaning the Swerves provided a chance for newer team members to learn the new swerve system.

Build Season Jan - March 2026

It turns out the supposed "polycarb" we ordered was not polycarb at all, but plexiglass. Plexi breaks in a completely different way than polycarb and causes many issues in the robot. This revelation explains a lot of things.

This years robot, Tartarus, has been through many hardships, yet, she prevailed. Allbeit not in one piece. In one of the first practice matches we did, we broke the intake. We ended up fixing it to the point where it worked enough to continue onto the next round. It proceeded to break in one of the first qualification matches again, along with the shooter.  We weighed in as the lightest robot and continued getting lighter.

We've had a busy couple weeks! Photos and information coming soon...

January Kickoff Jan 10-11, 2026

KICKOFF is here.

Our Kickoff for this season approaches.  January 10, 2026 at 9 am, we will watch the simucast with thousands of teams all over the world to see what this years robot game will look like.  Right after that we will start printing copies of the rules, rewatching the field videos and doing some brainstorming.  Families and Alumni are welcome to join us!

SATURDAY:  Some students will go to Skyview High School at 7am that morning to watch the kickoff with 12 other local teams, pick up our kickoff kit, and stay for some strategizing until 1pm.  They will rejoin us at the shop after that for some brainstorming and lunch before we break for everyone to go home and read the rules.

SUNDAY, we meet back at the shop at 2:30 pm to go over what we learned from the rules, decide on our team goals and strategy, and get ready to start working on Tuesday in the shop.

FAMILIES & ALUMNI:  You are welcome to join us on Saturday (After 12:30) and Sunday 2:30-5:15 in the shop for the kickoff weekend!  We would love your excitement, thoughts, and help!

November and December in the shop have been spent continuing preparation for Build season. We have been training up on the tools in the shop, learning some of the pitfalls of our Autonomous driving program and setting up our team goals.

We have also been learning to prototype, and after drawing our battery boxes and shooters up on paper, we tried our hands at cardboard mock- ups.  One or two of the students have even moved to CAD design.  In addition, we have rebuilt two robot carts, continued cleaning the robotics room, and elected team captains! 

Our Captains for the 2026 Build Season are:

• Team Captains are Laura (Hulk) & Jaclyn

• Programming, Electrical, and Controls (PEC) Captain is Jaclyn

• Safety Captain is Jaclyn

• Design Captain is Trinity with Maggie as backup

• Mechanical Captain is Sean, with Tyson as the vice captain

• Scouting Captain is Alanah

• Business Captain is Maggie 

• Drive team:  Laura will be a Drive Captain, Jaysun is our Technician, and other positions will be decided by the team once we know the game.

Congrats to all of our new leaders.