FRC
Bedford Express, Team 1023
Bedford Express (BX) is the community FRC team of Bedford Public Schools in Temperance, Michigan. As a FIRST Robotics Competition team, BX challenges our high-school students year-round to raise funds, display our brand, develop leadership skills, spread gracious professionalism, and build and program industrial-size robots to play a difficult field game against other teams from Michigan and around the world.
Each season’s unique game requires a new robot to be built and programmed under difficult rules, limited resources, and an intense six-week build season. Parents, alumni, community members, and real-world engineers volunteer as mentors and lend their time and abilities to guide each team. Every year, BX looks to learn from mistakes and improve in all areas.
Next Express, Team 8423
During the 2020 season, FIRST in Michigan (FIM) asked us to create an FRC Team comprised of only eighth grade students. The goal of this team, along with the three other incoming eighth grade FRC teams in Michigan, would be to give eighth grade students an opportunity to experience an FRC season before they entered high school. Our program gladly accepted the challenge and with three weeks left in the build season, 8423, Next Express was created.
Because of COVID, 8423 did not compete in an in person event until the 2022 season, but since then, they have stayed “on track.” The selected eighth grade students finish their season in FTC in the fall and the next month begin their new career in FRC.
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Our actual season begins the first Saturday in January with our Kickoff event. From there, we have our six week build season, our annual unveil event, and our competitions. Our two district competitions occur in March, and if we qualify for the state and world competitions, they last through April. We have our annual end of the season banquet in May, and while we do have outreach and project activities during the offseason, we are less active.
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We have several different subgroups on 1023. These include build, programming, electronics, CAD, strategy, impact and media. This gives every student an opportunity to get involved in something they are passionate about, whether it be building robots with build or writing essays with impact.
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The only cost that every student must pay is the registration fee. The early bird pricing is $90, and the regular cost is $100.
Beyond that, the cost does vary from year to year and depends on several factors:
Shirts - the first two shirts that a student receives are covered by the registration fee. After that, a student must pay for any additional shirts ordered.
Travel - there are two guaranteed district events that 1023 will participate in every year. While they do vary, they generally cost about $125 per event. In addition, if the team qualifies for the state competition and the student decides to attend that event, that costs anywhere from $200 to $300. If the team qualifies for the World Championship down in Houston and the student decides to attend, it costs about $800.
Again, these prices vary from year to year and are a basic estimate based on previous years. For more details or answers to specific questions, please feel free to reach out to us through our contact page!
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On 1023, we like to let the student decide how involved or not involved they would like to be. In season, the only mandatory practices are during our six week build season on Thursday nights form 6-9pm and Saturday’s from 10am-2pm. Beyond these mandatory practices, students are able to choose how often they come to practice. We have students who spend over 200 hours during the six week build season at practice and we have other students who spend only the 42 hours of mandatory time at practice. It truly is up to the student and their commitments overall.
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While there is a large amount of contact between the robots in any given match, the goal of FRC is not to build a robot that destroys another robot, as it is in Battle Bots. There are penalties for specific types of contact between the robots during matches. With that being said, there are some pretty intense collisions and moments in matches, similar to Battle Bots.