Tag: 2015-2016

Posts made in the 2015-2016 school year. FRC: Stronghold FTC: Res-Q

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FIRST World Championship 2016

For the second year in a row, the RoboLancers traveled to St. Louis to compete at the FIRST World Championship. We had won the Chairman’s Award, the most prestigious award in FIRST, during MAR. It was a dream come true for us to attend Worlds once again.

Winning brought back many memories from last year. Some of those weren’t pretty (16+ hour long bus ride), but it didn’t tone down our excitement. Even though I was excited to go, I was more excited in showing and explaining to the younger members what the event would be like. I told them how great this competition was, how great the teams are from around the world, and the cool gadgets that companies would bring along to showcase. It was to show them the wonderful event they were going to be part of.

Worlds was just like last year: a big arena filled with nerds from all over the world. The stadium was filled with FIRST stuff such a shop for FIRST gear, cardboard cutouts of Dean Kamen, Woodie Flowers, and Don Bossi; and Team 4525’s giant cardboard robot. Roaming around the arena was fun because there mascots also that walked about. I took so many pictures of them that one of my teammates, Henry Dang, started complaining. Whoops.

Mascots weren’t the only things I took pictures with. While walking, I saw out of the corner of my eye someone familiar. I actually yanked Henry back once I recognized who the person was. It was Woodie Flowers. For the second year in a row, Henry and I got to meet Woodie Flowers and get his autograph. We even got to take a picture with him. 

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For the matches we were in the Curie Division. We started off with a 124-66 victory in our first match. Then we moved up to 5th place with a score of 121-105 in our second match. Throughout the day we had a mixture of wins and losses. Sadly, we weren’t picked during the alliance selection but we gave shout outs to teams 1089 and 25 for representing FIRST Mid-Atlantic teams on the Curie Division as alliance captains. We ended the event in rank 30 (much better than last year’s rank 54) with a record of 5-5-0.

Other than the competition, the team got to do numerous activities such as attending the Innovation Faire, visiting the Gateway Arch, playing at the hotel’s arcade, and spending the night at Six Flags. Just bonding with friends and doing activities that weren’t robotics was a nice feeling.

Our time for the rest of the school year is running short. Our seniors will be graduating in June, and I can already tell there’s going to be tears during the RoboLancer’s senior send off. (There was so much crying last year). Worlds gave us an opportunity to grow closer as a family. 

This was our third time going to Worlds. Whether or not we go next year, we’ll continue to do our best and continue to spread STEM throughout the city of Philadelphia.

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Philadelphia Science Festival

The Philadelphia Science Festival features endless activities for everyone! It was a fun and unique experience for me because I got the chance to experience the festival as an attendee and an exhibitor. As an exhibitor it was a fun experience connecting with many different people through spreading STEM. It was really fun introducing others to robotics, our team, what we do here at Central High School, and in the Philadelphia community. Also, because it was a very diverse crowd with people of all ages I not only got to work with kids but also adults, getting many different people introduced to STEM. As an attendee, the festival was fun in a different way. Instead of teaching others, I got to learn from them which was just as enjoyable! I never thought I could learn so much in one afternoon. I got to witness others getting the opportunity to enjoy STEM the way I do!

 

 

 

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MAR Regional Championships

The Mid-Atlantic Robotic Competition started out as a blazing success for the RoboLancers. The first day of official competition ended with our team in the top 8 ranks, our Chairman’s division brimming  with confidence, and smiles on everyone’s faces. This feeling was something that I always love to feel at first competitions: the feeling of accomplishment that you get when everything goes right.

During the second day of competition we had more RoboLancers arriving to the arena, increasing the amount of cheer and motivation in the stands. The day went off pretty well, our robot worked with great success and we were standing in the top seeds for a while. We had little to no actual technical difficulties. Our team’s moral and excitement in the stands was higher then ever before. Every match was met with a large amount of chanting and cheers from the stands. Our offensive strategy and speed was not something anyone from the qualifying competitions would have expected from us. We were standing strong on our own and even stronger in our alliances. We were all having a great time and were excited for the alliance selection. Then we had a few rougher matches due to robot inactivity and connection problems but we still managed to make it to the 6th ranking alliance so we weren’t out of the mix yet.

Later on though we had to sub out of our alliance due to a gear coming out of place. It was a good competition for us and we could tell it left an impact on the teams around us. Once the award ceremony came around our team was itching for the announcement of the Chairman’s Award. Then when FIRST came around with their classic amount of puns regarding the Chairman’s winner we were all shaking in our seat from excitement because we knew we won the Chairman’s Award for the second year at MAR. Now our season won’t end quite yet as we prepare for the World Championship in St.Louis.

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Westtown Mid-Atlantic District Competition

On Friday, April Fools, the RoboLancers arrived at Westtown for another competitive weekend. During the last competition, the RoboLancers encountered some obstacles such as connectivity issues and belt problems. Luckily, we were able to identify the source of the problems which included a broken radio and too much tension on the belts. The tension in the belts was compounded by a vicious and speedy drive which put a lot of excess force on the belts. To solve this, we purchased a new radio and swapped from belts to chains. However, during our first practice match, our chain popped off! We embarked on another rocky start. But thankfully, with the help of other gracious teams, we were able to try smaller pneumatic wheels which we believed would solve the problem. Little did we know, the wheels actually impeded us from driving over defenses during autonomous and teleop. We quickly switched back to the 10-inch pneumatic wheels but maneuvered less viscously. But at long last, we were left with a working robot!

The event ran really smoothly with the help of other teams and volunteers which we are extremely thankful for. We would like to specifically thank one of the robot inspectors, Brian Lucas, who guided us through our connectivity issues. We were very fortunate to be picked by the third alliance team, competing along side the Gearaffes (5404) and Fightin’ Robotic Owls (5401). The competition exemplified the spirit of FIRST and was extremely fun. The judges was also full of amity. The whole entire atmosphere was amazing, as expected from FIRST!

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Springside Chestnut Hill

On March 18th and 19th, the RoboLancers competed in our first FRC qualifier of the 2016 season at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy. At 8 AM, Team 321 entered the pits and stands. The spectators “conquered” (as we like to say) a portion of the stands, while the pit crew entered our pit to prepare our robot for competition. Our drivers for this season include Cordell Beatty, current senior and robot driver, Brian Matta, senior and manipulator controller, and Jonah Getz, junior and coach.

Our robot and drive team performed reasonably well for the first five matches, receiving a respectable 2-3 win-loss ratio. When our 6th qualifying match (qualifying match #30) came about, our robot failed to connect to the system and the drive team was unable to control the robot. We were given little time to correct this error because, for the next two matches, we were required to queue for our next match right after finishing the earlier. We corrected our robot connection issue by replacing our router before our 9th match (qualifying match #47) and redeemed ourselves by winning two matches, losing one, and tying in our last qualifying match. We were not chosen to take part in the quarterfinals but, in the semi-finals, we were substituted into the game in the place of a malfunctioning robot. We played one last match alongside our close friends, Team 1218, Vulcan Robotics, but lost to the opposing alliance.

After our final match at the Springside Chestnut Hill Qualifier, our team continued to maintain a positive attitude in the stands and cheered on as Team 225, our friends and fellow competitors, and their alliance won their elimination matches and the finals.

The day ended with a trip through the High Five Line for winning the Chairman’s Award, the most prestigious award in FIRST Robotics. This ensures us a place in the FIRST Mid-Atlantic District Championship where we will again compete for the Mid-Atlantic Region’s Chairman’s Award and a chance to compete in the World Championships in St. Louis.

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PA FTC State Championship

On February 27, 2016, the Robolancers of Crimson 6676 participated in the Pennsylvania FTC Championship in York, PA. We were all nervous, as well as relieved when the bus drove up to Dallastown Intermediate School, the host of the competition. We walked to our pit, observing the impressive robots and accessories of other teams. We were immediately worried about how our robot would compare to these teams who were the best of their region. Yet we were still determined to do our best.
The first thing we needed was for the presentation team to perform for the judges. We thought our presentation went very well, yet the presentation of the other teams seemed to have also gone very well. As the day went on, we tested our autonomous, which was later able to perform the scoring of climbers into a bin, and practiced our tele-op, which was having many issues regarding our robot’s connection.

The qualifying games began and we were still not prepared to perform at out highest ability. Fortunately, we were allied with teams who earned us a high ranking of 3rd place after a couple games. On the other hand, as the competition progressed, our ranking went down. At the end of qualifying matches we were ranked 10th place. We were happy that we ranked high in the end, but disappointed that our robot din’t work as desired, due to connection complications.
There was still hope of earning an award that would allow us to move on to the East Super-regionals Championship after ranking tenth place. Unfortunately, we did not earn any, and this competition marked the end of our FTC 2016 season. Exhausted, we got on the bus and drove back do Philadelphia.

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Gearing Towards States

The Crimson 6676 Robolancers are moving on to the 2016 FTC statewide championship on Saturday, February 27. The team was notified a week before the competition that there was an opening available for one of Central’s teams. Mr. Johnson, the Robolancers’ coach, offered this opportunity of participation to Crimson, due to the team’s high ranking of 1st place in the previously completed Philadelphia FTC Championship. Currently, the team is preparing for the new upcoming challenge by making improvements to the robot.

Preparing for upcoming challenges, the team intends to fix any mistake that is discovered, to improve the robot. The height of the robot was increased to accommodate for debris. It was then decided that an additional manipulator be added, allowing the robot to drop climbers into a bin during the autonomous period of a match. In the meantime, the team is facing new difficulties potentially from the change in code. Other factors include products that don’t always work, connection breaks and phone crashes. When arrives at the states competition, they plan to do their best despite the low resources and possible problems in the phone. When competing, our drive team plans on earning the most points possible by climbing and hanging to the high-bar. The rest of Crimson will cheer them on no matter what happens. Crimson knows that this will be a true challenge unable to be easily overcome.

No matter what, Crimson won’t disappoint while doing their best.

 

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FIRST Stronghold

On January 9, 2016, the RoboLancers went to UPenn to attend the FRC kickoff where they watched Dean Kamen and Woodie Flowers roll through a forest on segways, make Monty Python references, and watch the reveal of the FRC 2016 game: FIRST Stronghold.

In Stronghold, teams must take over the opposing team’s castle by breaking through defenses, weaken the castle by launching boulders, and capturing the tower by challenging and/or scaling to it. Robots will have to navigate through different barriers in order to reach the other side. A unique feature about the game is the audience participation where the spectators are able to choose a defense barrier for each match.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to join my team members at the kickoff, but I was able to watch a live stream of the game at home. It was interesting to see the game’s field and how the game is to be played. In my opinion, Stronghold is much better than Recycle Rush. I love the medieval theme, with the field having giant towers for the alliances and the option of having a team standard over the player stations during matches. It really makes you feel like you’re back in the Middle Ages with knights and epic tournaments. The audience participation ability is going to be interesting. Teams outside the match will be trying to appeal to the audience in a Hunger Games sort of way to win their approval.

I think the game is perfect for us because as a medieval themed team, the possibilities for team spirit becomes endless. My team members were quite excited when they first saw the teaser for the game back in October. Right after watching it they were already theorizing about the game, wondering if it would be like Tower Defense or jousting. Then after attending kickoff they started brainstorming ideas for the robot. They discussed what type of robot it would be and possible strategies to score the most amount of points. 

Robots will be storming the castle in Stronghold.

It’s going to be great.

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FTC Meet #1

On January 10, 2016, we went to Temple University after school. People who were on the inspection team left 1 period before school ended and took all of the materials + the robot to Temple. The mechanical subgroup added a mechanism to press a lever on the field but it ended up passing the 16x16x16 inch size limit. We tried to drive it but only 1 motor worked. We worked with Jim to figure out what was wrong with it again.

It turned out that the wires weren’t crimped properly so we had to fix the 3 wires connected to the 3 motors that didn’t work. At first, we thought it was a programming error but then we noticed a faulty wire connecting the battery to the motor control turning on and off. It would turn off every time someone touched it so we checked if the other wires had the same problem. After we fixed it, we had the majority of the wheels working but it was about time to leave so we had a last minute scrimmage with our counterpart, Crimson. We scored 5 points while they scored 47. Our phone on the robot ran out of power and died 40 seconds into the scrimmage. Blocks also got stuck under the robot.

We packed up and came back the next day at the same time. This time, we fixed all of the wires and the phones were charged. The robot wasn’t driving properly. It was reversed and we couldn’t turn properly because the motors weren’t programmed to the right ports. To reverse the wheels, we just reversed the wires in the ports so that the – wire went into the + port and vis-versa.

We were in 2 scrimmages. In 1 scrimmage, we had to hold the controller upside down because the robot’s controls were reversed. The turning still wasn’t working. We almost got up to mid-zone in that scrimmage. In the second one, we quickly reversed the controls so we would be able to to hold the controller properly but that caused us to not be able to turn at all. We stopped moving for approximately a minute but we couldn’t get onto the climbing zone.

After that, we worked on the program until it was time to leave. Overall, it was a good experience. It taught us to be more prepared and to plan head.image (1)