Before UNC Pembroke, we were pleased with our performance at Pitt, but we knew that we could improve. The week of the competition, we worked on repairing Grunthos (our robot) and making small adjustments to our collector and elevator. In addition, we made the tough call to discard the idea of using ramps. A lot of effort went into making the ramps because it was a huge challenge to get the balance right between making them light enough but also strong enough to lift a 100-120 pound robot. Scrapping what we worked so hard to make was a slightly upsetting thought for us. In the end, we only removed our ramp pistons and kept the ramp boards themselves to display our sponsors and help with our starting configuration.
Despite a rougher start to the competition, Saturday went well! In our first qualification match, we did not run auto because we were unsure what would happen with a significantly lighter robot. On the practice field, we knew we could always kill Grunthos if the auto went wrong, but during an actual match, we would not be able to and ran the risk of damaging Grunthos. After our first match, we spent time on the practice field adjusting our auto, hoping to get it working like normal in time for our second match.
Though the changes got finished in time for our next match, the end outcome was not a working auto. Unknown to us, our encoder popped out prior to the start of the match, messing up our auto! Within the 15 seconds of auto, our robot rammed into the pile of cubes in front of the switch, slammed into the side of the field, tipped and came upright again, hit our alliance partners, and then proceeded to drive backward into our alliance station wall! Fortunately, our robot did not get damaged, we only suffered from a mild panic attack, and we were ranked 5th at the end of the day!
The next day, everything seemed to go by quickly for us, and before we knew it, qualification matches had ended and we were ranked 3rd. During Alliance Selections, we hitched a ride on the 1st Alliance. On that alliance, we had one of our buddies from Pitt County last weekend Team 2642, Pitt Pirates, and welcomed a new team aboard, Team 6729 RobCoBots! Playoffs followed in quick succession after a brief strategy meeting with our alliance, and we ended the day with another blue banner and also won the Innovation in Control Award!
Next up: UNC Asheville District Event!