by The Hitchhikers | Jan 24, 2012 | Build season
Would you look at that! It’s already the start of the third week of this season of FIRST competition. That means most teams are wrapping up their designs and have begun prototyping their various creative ideas.
The Hitchhikers are no exception. The design for our robot is in its final stages and we’ve begun testing several designs for our shooting mechanism that will adorn the top of our robot. Our first design, a tube, resulted in limited success. It did move basketballs from the inside of the robot to the outside, but it did not do so with a high velocity that would be required for long shots.
But our second design, a wheel-based spinner, has been far more successful. Based on a design popularized shortly after kickoff, we used four KOP wheels to launch the basketballs up to thirty feet away, reaching heights of nearly fifteen feet. These tests were recorded and can be seen here.
On the programming front, our programming team has as well taken some important steps toward a successful robot. Today they culminated the work of the past two weeks of interpreting, testing, and modifying a tracking program for the camera with several successful trials of tracking and approaching the retroreflective rectangle on the backboard.
We also received a partial set of field elements as we closed up today. We now have a ramp and a bump, and we will soon have a set of basketball hoops. These were made by several of our mentors (many thanks to them for their hard work) and we can’t wait to get back and test our robot out on them.
It’s currently sixty days until our first regional, but significantly less until ship. We’ll keep working feverishly on our robot and do our best to hitchhike to a successful competition in South Carolina.
by The Hitchhikers | Jan 21, 2012 | Build season
The 2012 season is now in progress! The Hitchhikers spent January 7th in Raleigh at kickoff brainstorming with other teams about this year’s challenge, Rebound Rumble.
This year’s game is called Rebound Rumble, and is based on basketball. The robots can score in hoops positioned at three different heights for 1, 2 and 3 points respectively, and opposing teams must attempt to block the ball before it goes in. During the last thirty seconds of the round, each team has the choice to either continue making baskets or try to balance on a tilting bridge located in the center of the playing field. To promote FIRST’s value of “coopertition”, teams have the chance to earn extra points by balancing their robot on the center bridge with an opposing team’s robot. FIRST’s animation introducing the game can be found here.
We’re looking forward to another exciting season! To all other FIRST teams out there, good luck!
by The Hitchhikers | Feb 12, 2011 | Build season
At 1:05 am on February 12, 2011, the Hitchhikers website left beta and was publicly released. Welcome to the new site! This layout was designed for ease of navigation, but also to look cool. Use the navigation bar below the site logo to easily move around the site. Check out the lates team news, read about us, check out our photo gallery, or watch for upcoming events, all right here!
So what’s new here? First of all we completely revamped the look and feel of the site. Instead of the old blocky feel of the previous site, we have a nice, smooth translucent look. We’ve added a news slider at the top of the home page, to provide instant and easy access to the latest news updates. We’ve also changed the format of the news posts, giving each post a dedicated page so it’s easier to find in the future, as well as adding an RSS feed so you can keep updated from the comfort of your RSS reader. Our about section retains most of its original content, though it is now more organized and easier to navigate. We’ve also added a gallery of photos and videos, so you can see the team in action. The new calendar page provides easy access to event information, whether it be a team build meeting, or the days of a competiton. Last but not least, the Resources section contains all your basic FRC needs, from forms and surveys to useful links to FRC-related documents, you can find it all here.
That’s about all the new stuff. We hope you like the new site, and happy Hitchhiking!
by The Hitchhikers | Jan 1, 2011 | Build season
Here we go; the 2011 build season has begun! I hope everyone enjoys working together to create wonderful and fantastic robots. We will all learn new things this year, create new friendships, and most of all have fun. Enjoy Logomotion!
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