by The Hitchhikers | Apr 30, 2017 | Competitions
“We made it!” proclaimed several hitchhikers as the World Championships in Houston commenced on Wednesday. Prior to the start of Worlds, we found out we had been placed in the Carver Division, which turned out to be one of the more competitive divisions. The start of the World Championships found our team getting settled into our hotel, unbagging Slartibartfast, and setting up our pit in the area marked “Carver.” We also attended a conference and visited top teams such as Team 118, Robonauts; and Team 971, Spartan Robotics. Eventually we were all done for the next day, and we went back to our hotel for some much needed rest.
The first day of competition dawned bright and early, but the team was wide awake as we were in the first match of the entire competition. The whole team was excited and with a “1, 2, 3 go!” the first match of the day started. Slartibartfast raced over to put a gear onto the airship, but ten seconds into the match, the refs realized that they had forgotten to remove a cardboard box off the field and, as a result, had to reset the match. What a let down! They reset the match and tried it again. This time, however, Slartibartfast didn’t move. Somehow, an ethernet cable got unplugged from a radio during the reset. It seemed as if everything was already going downhill, but we knew that we had to take our own advice; “Don’t panic! Stay optimistic about everything.”
As the day progressed, it got better and better. Slartibartfast was doing amazing and was catching a lot of attention. We had continued to take our advice, and it was paying off. Towards the end of the day, we had two big matches; the first one was against the number one ranked team in our division, and the second one was an alliance with Spartan Robotics. Both of these team’s robots were capable of delivering a gear and shooting 40 kpa during the auto phase by themselves. Needless to say, we were very nervous to be going against such a good team with Spartan Robotics watching as we had invited them to watch while strategizing for our next match with them. In a shocking turn of events, we managed to upset the number one ranked team in our division while having one of our best performances all season by delivering seven gears and climbing. The following match with Spartan Robotics was also a huge success, and Slartibartfast continued to perform at a high level. We ended the day ranked 15th with a ton of teams in the top eight impressed with us and some new knowledge gained from the conferences that our team attended.
The next two days were a rollercoaster of emotions. During the qualification matches, we continued to perform well, but missed two opportunities to show our climb because we used the last few seconds of those matches to deliver the last gear for a fourth rotor. We ended our second day of competition ranked 20th. Even though we knew that teams were interested in us, we were not sure what would actually happen during alliance selections. Alliance selections passed quickly, and for the first time in our team’s history, we were picked at Worlds! We ended up as a third pick on the seventh alliance with Team 4063, TriKzR4Kidz; Team 231, High Voltage; and Team 4911, CyberKnights. Though our alliance did not advance beyond quarterfinals, we still had a blast! We spent the remainder of our time cheering on our fellow NC teams, packing up, and watching the Einstein finals. The team was sad to see World Championships come to an end because we had learned many new things from the conferences, strengthened as a team, and made lasting friendships with other teams. However, we knew that though competition season was over, there is always the off-season and next season to look forward to!
by The Hitchhikers | Apr 17, 2017 | Competitions
The week before States, and we started off with a meeting full of reflections, redesigns and a cup of tea. We envisioned a newly designed gear gobbler (our gear collector) to withstand collisions, a frame to prevent gears from falling into our electronics, and dreamed of perfecting vision tracking. Leading up to States, team members scrambled to prepare Slartibartfast for the State competition while practicing our motto “Don’t Panic!” Upgrades to the gear gobbler included changing the gearbox to make it faster, moving the chain to the middle, and adding an encoder to simplify the programming. The frame consisted of two pieces of corrugated plastic that moved with the gear gobbler to prevent misplaced gears from getting stuck.
Saturday came and went along and had us feeling like a bowl of petunias falling to its demise. Anything that could have gone wrong did such as our rope snapping mid-climb or our battery smashing into our encoder wires and rendering Slartibartfast motionless. Throughout the entire day, our team kept their heads held high and continued to practice our motto. By the end of the day, things started to turn around. We ended on a three game winning streak and moved up in the rankings.
Eventually, it was time for alliance selections and, as we were outside the top 8, all we could do was hope for our team name to be called. After the first round of selections finished without 2059 being called out, the team uncharacteristically started to panic. We saw glimpses of our season coming to an end, but when the sixth alliance selected us, we hopped aboard our Heart of Gold. Onboard was the ROBOMonkeys and a familiar face, Team SPORK, who had been Finalists with us the previous week. In our first series of matches, our alliance easily moved on with back-to-back four-rotor matches. In the semifinals, both alliances fought a hard battle, but we managed to move on once again. To our disbelief, we had made it to the finals where we competed against the TerrorBytes, The Zebracorns, and their comrade Hawktimus Prime. After two hard-fought matches, we had to admit defeat with grace. We finished State Championships as Finalists and receivers of the Hard Hat award. But our journey was not over yet. We qualified for the World Championships in Houston, Texas, where we will compete against teams from all over the Universe.
by The Hitchhikers | Mar 27, 2017 | Competitions
During the Greensboro playoff rounds, our gear collector was destroyed in the heat of competition. As a result, we worked on making a new and improved one. It would still be automated, but it would allow us to collect a gear in the open field instead of chasing the gear to the wall like the previous collector required. This would allow for faster cycle times. We accomplished this by moving the roller out to the edge of the collector, allowing it to make instant contact with the gear. We also made it so that the gear would sit higher in the robot, making it easier to place the gear on the peg in teleop and in autonomous.
On the first day of competition, we started off strong as a result of our drive team’s growing experience and confidence with operating Slartibartfast. Our improved gear collector and the ability to get a gear in auto was a huge help to the alliances that we were on. We ended the day ranked in 5th and showed that we were consistent and one of the better performing robots at the event.
On the next day, we continued to perform well and ended up ranked 3rd at the end of qualification matches. During alliance selections, we became the 2nd alliance captain. Our alliance partners were Team 3196, Team SPORK and Team 4795, EastBots. The playoff rounds followed in quick succession, and we made it to the finals. We won the first round by one pressure point, but fell short of winning the other rounds. Though our team was disappointed that we did not win (we were short one climb), we were pleased that we ended the event as winners of the Excellence in Engineering Award!
by The Hitchhikers | Mar 25, 2017 | Competitions
Our first event was a huge learning experience and helped us to develop a clearer, more focused game strategy. At the first event, we learned that shooting was not the way to go for us. As a result, we took off our shooter and ball collector. We also realized that while our gear collector was good, we could make it better and faster for our next events. In the few days leading up to the Greensboro District Event, we decided to make a second gear collector that could pick up gears off the floor and was automated. This, we discovered, would make our cycle time faster and ensure that the gear was placed on the airship more securely.
On Friday, we again started off a little rough due to having a new gear collector and being unable to make it to a practice round for more practice with it. After a few rounds, however, it was pretty obvious that our new gear collector was working well. It was common to score three to four gears in a match. Once again, we showed that we could climb and do gears well. At the end of the day, we were ranked in 8th place.
On Saturday, our team continued to improve and climb in the rankings. Our final ranking was 6th place overall in the competition. During alliance selections, the fourth highest ranking team chose us as their first pick. Our alliance ended up consisting of Team 900, The Zebracorns; Team 3331, Tarheel Robots; and Team 2059, The Hitchhikers. Though our alliance did not advance beyond quarterfinals, again the result of our alliance having some tech problems, we had a great time and continued to learn valuable lessons! It also helped that we were awarded the Gracious Professionalism Award again!!
by The Hitchhikers | Mar 25, 2017 | Competitions
After bag & tag, we had about a week to prepare for our first competition, the Pitt County District Event. Over that week, we met on several days to continue fine tuning Slartibartfast, make buttons, start packing, and do anything else that needed to be done before competition.
On Saturday, we started off a little rough as our drive team was still getting used to the game and driving our robot, Slartibartfast. We had shown that we could do gears, but had not shown that we could climb. As the morning progressed, we got better and better. We showed that we had a consistent, fast climb and could deliver two to three gears in a match, which was very important in this game. At the end of the day, we were ranked in 2nd place.
The following day, we continued to improve and stayed steady in the rankings. Our final ranking was 2nd place overall in the competition. By the end of alliance selections, we had Team 4561, TerrorBytes, and Team 5607, Team Firewall as our alliance partners. While our alliance did not make it beyond quarterfinals, the result of our alliance having some tech problems, we had a blast and learned a lot! We also ended up getting the Gracious Professionalism Award for the sixth time!!
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