FRC Competition

Friday and Saturday March 18^th-19^th. Finally. After an entire season of hard work, it was time to show everyone what our robot can do. The day began with the opening ceremony that celebrated FIRST and honored certain students for their dedication to the program. Then, the long-awaited competition commenced.

2 days. 42 teams. 70 matches. Essentially, the top 8 seeds at the end of the games choose 2 other teams for a triple team alliance. These 8 alliances then compete in a final competition for 1^st place. And we’re off.

Right away, there were many repairs to be made. For example, we were forced to find a new router for ours was outdated. Luckily, we found one at the Brophy Robotics room, and we were able to successfully program it. Moreover, the entire minibot deployment system seemed to present one problem after another. There was the issue of it not hitting the main arm, then, there was the issue of actually placing the minibot onto the pole after it deployed. The current deployment mechanism forced the driver to drive the main robot sideways to hit the pole, yet the drivetrain proved unable to do so.

After the first 3 matches with our robot, we were a bit frustrated, but still enthusiastic with our machine. We realized that our arm actually stood a fighting chance as we were able to score at least one point for the time being. Perhaps further adjustments could allow us to do better. On the other hand, some thought that it would be smart to stay mainly focused on the minibot and ditch the arm entirely.  According to Gabe Alba, it would take almost 10-15 subsequent intertubes in order to garner as many points as scoring with just the minibot.

Because the arm seemed to suffer some problems – it could not stop in place but only ascend or descend – the minibot seemed like a good chance. The plan was to work on the minibot from the third match to the fifth and send the robot minibot-less. But how could we guarantee the minibot to reach the pole? After careful brainstorming, we finally came up with a temporary solution. Instead of deploying the minibot facing sideways of the robot, we could design it to face forward. It was a start, and we did not really have any other options.

The minibot deployment system was ready, the drivetrain was programmed successfully, and the pneumatics seemed to be working. What could go wrong? We hadn’t scored since the third match, and this was the seventh and last one. From what I heard, it did not go well. Not at all. Our robot was pinned, eventually causing our minibot and its deployment system to go awry. Although it was not our brightest moment, we would learn a lot from it, and hopefully we can bring this knowledge to future competitions.

Saturday was introduced with another opening ceremony and then a few more matches. We did not expect anything to happen from our robot, yet we were not discouraged from the overall result of the tournament. We were not chosen when it came down to the alliance pickings, but it did not matter. We placed 20^th out of the 42 robots, and that in itself was a victory. Now is not the time for giving up, but now is the time to prepare. We will have to work hard in the coming weeks to get our robot ready, but hopefully when it comes down to it, we will be stronger than ever for the competition in Las Vegas.