Our first #TeamREV spotlight of the 2023-2024 FIRST® IN SHOW℠ season is FRC Team #3284 - LASER from Camdenton, Missouri!

Tell us a little bit about your team’s background.

Our team was founded in 2010 under our former head coaches, Mr. and Mrs. Comer. As of 2021, our Head Coach is Mr. Jackson and our LASER Coordinator is Mrs. Rohrer. We have built a name for ourselves through our representation of the ethos of FIRST. We have been Impact World Finalists twice and have consecutively won the Impact Award 8 times. Our mascot is Patrick the Dragon. Our team colors are purple, green, and orange. Our robot's name is Devinco. We host an annual Sponsor Dinner to connect with our local sponsors and partners. One of our major sponsors is the United States Navy. 

Our team promotes student leadership and places a heavy focus on the exploration of ideas. LASER teaches its members to be well-rounded individuals and participate in whatever they find interesting. Members of our team are involved in other extracurricular activities such as football, cheerleading, soccer, student council, speech and debate, dance team, and more! Every member and coach on our team is OSHA10, CPR, AED, FIRST Mental Health and Equity trained. 

Our President and Vice President double as the Impact Team Leads and act as team representatives. Our Shop Team is led by our Head Shop Lead who oversees projects in the shop while focusing on safety. We also have specialty shop leads: 

• Design Lead: focuses on analysis of the game and what our team needs to excel 
• Programming Lead 
• Research and Development Lead: focuses on CAD and researching new approaches 
• Fabrication Lead: focuses on the development of the robot. 
• Strategy Lead: focuses on match scouting and pre-scouting teams

What has your team been working on recently?

We have been doing many community outreach events, such as: 

• Trunk-or-Treat and Lake Breeze Haunted House 
• Donated over 20 vases of flowers 
• Sunshine for Seniors: Decorated and delivered pumpkins to brighten our seniors' Halloween 
• Meet the Teacher Night: Robot demonstrations at School of the Osage, Camdenton Schools, and Macks Creek Schools
• Food Truck Frenzy: We hosted our very own fundraiser at the Camdenton Soccer Tournament. We brought in local food trucks and shared profits between our robotics and soccer teams.  

As for the build side, we purchased a new CNC and are in the process of building it right now, which has been a useful learning experience for our team. We spent the majority of the month preparing for our offseason event by rebuilding our robot and redesigning our cube shooter. Our team is very proud to have been named a finalist at Cowtown Throwdown as the 3rd Alliance Captain.

What goals and achievements are your team working towards?

Last season, our team celebrated many accomplishments. On the build side, we enhanced our robot's performance, speed, and reliability. For the first time in LASER's history, we successfully implemented a swerve drivetrain on our robot. On the Impact side, we were honored to be World Impact Finalists. We established new outreach events and improved on our existing ones. 

Our Impact Team's goal is to be named a Hall of Fame team this upcoming season. Our Shop Team's goal is to win a regional as a picking team. We will continue to incorporate our vision into the robot and train our rookies based on their interests for an efficient and fun season. Lastly, we hope to access a CNC bending brake, building materials (especially aluminum), and most importantly, our own practice field.

What is your team enjoying within the #TeamREV Sponsorship Program?

We enjoy having a community to reach out to as we seek to improve our robot's performance.

What else would you like to share about your team?

We have recentered our focus to our motto, "Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things". This is what we base our team's outreach efforts on. We focus on making the world a better place, which is what being a member of LASER is all about.

We're excited to see the awesome things you do this upcoming season, LASER! Find the team on these platforms:

• Website
• Facebook
• X (Twitter)
• Instagram