by The Hitchhikers | Jan 16, 2018 | Off Season
As the month of November set in, excitement for the Christmas Parade began to build. For three years, we have participated in the Cary Christmas Parade, spreading the joy of FIRST to hundreds of people. Our tradition of participating in a Christmas Parade continued this year, but unlike previous years, we decided to participate in Apex’s Christmas Parade.
Every year, we incorporate elements from the most recent game into our float. This year, the game had a steampunk theme. To connect the theme to the holidays, we decided to make our float into a Christmas steam engine. After finalizing a design, we immediately started to work on the float. To make our train, we used the gears from STEAMworks, elements from Recycle Rush, and a fog machine. Unlike the Cary Christmas Parade, Apex’s parade is at night. As a result, we also had to do some slight adjustments to the original float. For example, we decorated our robots and float in hundreds of lights to make them visible. A few meetings later, the float was finished.
On the day of the parade, we put the finishing touches on our float and headed to the queuing lineup. While waiting for the parade to start, we played a game of ultimate frisbee to pass the time and keep warm. After about an hour of frisbee, it was time for the parade to start. Despite a few communication and technical difficulties, the parade was quite successful! The team had a fantastic time, and many people told us how impressed they were with our demonstration!
by The Hitchhikers | Jan 15, 2018 | Competitions
In 2013, we and three fellow NC teams founded the off-season competition Thundering Herd of Robots (THOR). Ever since then, we have continued to help out with THOR and participate in the tournament. This year was no different.
Training is the primary focus during the off-season, so the primary focus for THOR was to get our new students ready for the 2018 FRC game Power Up. In our makeshift Pit at the End of the Universe, there was a sign-up schedule for the Drive Team. The team took turns trying each role throughout the day. Despite a couple of electrical problems and a constantly changing Drive Team, we did well and finished qualifications ranked 10th.
During Alliance Selections, we were the first pick of the 5th alliance. At the end of the selections, our two alliance partners were Team 4816, Gadget Girls, and Team 5518, Techno Wolves. Our alliance did not advance beyond quarterfinals, but we gained something more important than a win and a trophy. All of the goals we set out to achieve at THOR were accomplished. Our new students learned some valuable lessons, we found some pretty talented drivers, and we all had an amazing time!
by The Hitchhikers | Jan 12, 2018 | Competitions
One of our off-season goals was to keep the positive momentum from Worlds going. Another goal was to train up our new students joining the team by redoing Slartibartfast, our STEAMworks robot, in order to equip them for the upcoming season. Before touching Slartibartfast, we held training classes on safety, mechanical, electrical, and programming for all of our students, new or veteran. After weeks of training courses, we were ready to work on Slartibartfast!
Due to SCRIW, an off-season competition in South Carolina we were participating in, we knew we had to make our changes to Slartibartfast in about two weeks. We began by completely stripping Slartibartfast of his electronics and refitting him with a new solid wiring system. Following this, we changed his drivetrain to the one we used on Trillian, our 2013 robot. In doing so, he gained the ability to push other robots out of the way. The last improvement was to replace his programming code with new code that was developed by our new programming team. Finally, Slartibartfast was ready for competition!
As in previous years, a goal of off-season competitions is to train our new students. The other goal of off-season tournaments is to give our team members the opportunity to drive the robot in a competitive setting and see who is interested in being on the Drive Team. Even without a consistent driver, Slartibartfast rose to the top of the rankings. By the end of the day, we found ourselves ranked first.
Our first pick of Alliance Selections was Team 4451, Robotz Garage, our longtime friends from South Carolina. At the end of selections, our third and fourth alliance partners were Team 3737, Roto Raptors, and Team 283, The Generals. With our alliance, we quickly made it to the finals! The first finals match went our way, but not without Slartibartfast taking some damage. The wire connecting the drivetrain motors to the roboRIO had broken. To give us time to fix our robot, we decided to substitute ourselves with Team 283 and sat the second match out to fix Slartibartfast. Unfortunately, the other alliance won. It came down to the wire at SCRIW, but with a newly repaired Slartibartfast, our alliance pulled a win and became SCRIW champions for the third time!
But it was not over. We still had the Mentor Match to compete in. Coincidentally, the mentors who filled the roles of Drive Coach, Main Driver, and Secondary Driver were the parents of the students who filled those roles in our actual competition season. They all proved to be excellent at their respective positions, navigating Slartibartfast through the field, cycling gears, and climbing as if they had done it a thousand times!
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!
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