JANUARY NEWSLETTER

In the new 2026 Rebuilt season, the Gaelhawks welcome both new and returning members, as well as returning alumni!

Starting with the Kickoff event, we viewed the Rebuilt game animation as one big group, soon splitting up to divide and conquer the game material. Coming back together, each group presented their findings as well as the subsequent strategies they came up with. The following day focused on preparation–designing, planning, updating our website to fit the upcoming season, and introducing new members to the workload. 

Build created the prototype for shooter, intake, indexer and are working on the climber, having also laid out the frame perimeter for the robot.

Field Build worked on assembling two hubs for one co-op in Bridgeport and are working to assemble our tower to climb.

Programming has been hard at work! Having created our repository, we tweaked fulfill localization, and are now able to detect april tags due to visual object detection using the camera setup. On that note, different parameters were tested for objection and mobility.

Digital Marketing has been planning and working on completing the monthly video while concentrating on updating the team’s social media pages (active on our Instagram: @gaelhawks230) and the Team230 website, as well as both drafting and finalizing our shirt design. With that, the team will soon start producing shirts!

Awards has written and submitted the Woodie Flowers and Dean’s List Essays. Currently researching on awards that can be earned through the pit from judges. Congratulations to our Woodie Flower nominees: Mr. Spoldi, and our Dean’s List nominees: Ethan Gonzales and Liam Drury.

Scouting changed the software from working on tablets to be able to be worked on phones or on Google Sheets. We are trying to change the schedule for match scouter and get rid of Tableau to make it more accessible. They also finished working on the graphs for strategy. 

Outreach finished giving our Hour of Code presentations to all 5 Shelton elementary schools: Elizabeth Shelton, Booth Hill, Long Hill, Mohegan, and Sunnyside. The K-4 students were very engaged and excited all throughout the interactive learning experience involving our team and robot. 

Although those are the only updates for this month’s newsletter, if you are interested in learning more or seeing how it all plays out, you can come visit and watch us at our first 2026 comp at Western New England University in Springfield, Massachusetts from March 13th to the 15th!