Our robot chassis this year was design specifically for size and spin. We needed it to be small, strong, and compact as there is very limited space this year and we decided to add two omni wheels to allow our robot to aim more efficiently.
Our prototype Frisbee shooter for Ultimate Ascent overcame several different prototypes to reach its final version. During the course of the first week and a half, we designed and assembled various designs and configurations of our flywheel design.
The first day of build season is a very important time for us Hitchhikers for it is during that time that we start to formulate ideas about our design. This year was no different as some of our team members quickly noticed some changes with this year’s game and created some ideas that would be refined for the next few weeks.
FIRST Robotics Competition teams from across the state of North Carolina gathering together in Dorton Arena can only mean one thing (well, two things actually, but excluding the North Carolina Regional, one thing): it is time for kickoff.
Kickoff is the start of a six week journey where FRC teams design, build, and program a robot to compete in that year’s game. This time around, we will be shooting discs and climbing pyramids in the 2013 FRC game, Ultimate Ascent.
What is the most fun way to get hyped for build season? By participating in a practice tournament with other *FIRST* teams!
On October 13, we rolled down to Irmo High School for SCRIW II (South Carolina Robotics Invitational and Workshops). This was our second time at the annual practice tournament where we networked and communicated with teams as far away as Florida. This year, we allied with and played against teams from throughout the region, including both of our winning alliance partners from the Palmetto Regional.
This event impacted our team in many ways. First, it proved an excellent way for us to help train new members and introduce them to robotics. Second, we bonded as a team cheering in all of those matches and working together on the robot. But when it started, we had no idea how truly exciting it would be.
The robot performed well. Very well. Despite some technical issues with the wiring to our wireless system, by the end of qualifications, we found ourselves in seventh place. Because of this, we were one of the eight teams selecting teams for one of the eight elimination alliances. After this point, these alliances would battle it out in a best two out of three elimination tournament. The winning alliance would advance to the next round while the losing alliance would be eliminated.
Once we had assembled out alliance, we realized that this was the perfect team to compete with. After all, we were paired with fellow Palmetto winners, the Hotbotz (2640), and another fellow North Carolina team, the Hedgehogs (587).
Our alliance scored a huge win in the quarter finals, winning the first two matches, but we ran into trouble facing the top-seeded alliance of 342, 1758, and 3489. All three matches were decided by less than five points and each match went down to the endgame, balancing upon the bridges. The first match, our alliance partner balanced and we won a very close match. The second match, we struggled to balance and we were narrowly defeated. Everything would come down to the third and final match. It started rough; we missed our autonomous shots and started the match behind by twelve point, but we made up the difference with some excellent shooting and sealed the deal with a balanced bridge. We here headed to the finals.
In the semifinals and quarterfinals, Wando Robotics (4533), the Iron Wolverines (4083), and the Team PyroTech (3459) had made a series of upsets thanks to the challenging defense administered by 4083, combined with their ability to balance consistently with 4533. If we were to be SCRIW II champions, we would have needed to score a lot of points. That is exactly what we did. Everything in our alliance complimented each other like gears in a well-oiled machine. Our autonomous worked, our alliance scored, and the robots balanced. Even despite losing communication with our robot midway through the final match, our formidable alliance still managed to sweep the final rounds. Team members rushed to the drivers in celebration. We the Hitchhikers, the Hotbotz, and the Hedgehogs were SCRIW II champions! It was a spectacular, unexpected win, but it was not just the matches we won, but also the bonding and learning we won together as a team that made this moment so impactful.
We came out of SCRIW a better team; more ready to face the coming competition next year. Our sincere gratitude goes out to 2640, 587, the other teams, and especially all of the other teams that made this possible!
After two weeks of preparation, the North Carolina Regional has come and gone in three short days. But despite that short time period, they passed anything but quickly or easily. The team got to feel a diverse range of emotions through the 72-hour period.
We arrived Thursday confident of a good showing based on our success at the Palmetto regional. We started the day making a few repairs to the robot, resulting in us missing our two practice matches before lunch. One of our worries was our front right wheel. We spent an hour getting in back in alignment but finished just before break.
After a quick lunch, our pit crew took Benjy out on the field to try to calibrate the camera, something we overlooked in South Carolina. Unfortunately, the sheer number of windows in Dorton Arena made it all but impossible to isolate the targets from the background light. It was simply too bright for the camera to be of much use to us.
That afternoon we made full use of the filler line, fitting in a team record five practice matches by filling other team’s vacancies. Our first match was a little worrying because our arm didn’t work, but as soon as we looked at the robot we realized we had left our pressure release open on our pneumatics system and pressure couldn’t build to hold the arm up. We laughed and remembered to check that before every match from there on. After that match we performed well in our final four practice matches and ended up going 2-3. At five our seniors joined in the senior picture and then we all left, several hours before the pits actually closed, spirits high from a successful day. We were ready for qualification matches to start.
Friday was a day filled with disappointment for us. We lost all seven of our matches, ending the day the only winless team. The only redeeming quality of the day was the few coopertition points we got, but through the day we were seeded as low as 51 of 53, and ended the day seeded 44. We were nearly tipped three times on the coopertition bridge. In our sixth match we got up and balanced the bridge at the two second mark. As our drive team backed off the controls, the bridge tipped and Benjy rolled off. As our driver jumped back to rebalance, the buzzer rang to end the match. We lost by five points.
In the downtime we had between our last two matches, we went to the practice field. We looked at our camera tracking, our shooting locations, our strategy, everything and anything that could help us win a match. We tried taking shots just as we had been on the field and we hit every three we took. It was bewildering. We weren’t doing anything different, but for some reason we could use dead reckoning perfectly on the practice field. In the end, we decided to change our strategy from taking long three point shots to drive right to the fender and sink much easier two point shots instead. We tried that in our final match of the day, but we were up against a very good opposing alliance and still lost.
Saturday was slightly more positive. We had three matches to try and show what we were actually capable of. While we stood in queue, our driver’s came over and handed us buttons with the logo of our lucky fast food restaurant from Palmetto. We ate lunch there every day and performed well in the afternoons. Since we couldn’t eat there, the buttons were the next best thing. When we won our first match, we knew it was real.
We won our second match as well, but didn’t manage to sweep the morning. Up against tough competition, we were down in the closing minute but only needed a single robot balanced to win. As we started up the bridge, one of our alliance mates rushed up behind us. As we tried to balance with the unexpected guest, they pushed us too far forward and we tipped over, our first and only this far. Luckily nothing was broken on Benjy, aside from a slightly bent arm. We took him back to the pit and then went up to the stands for alliance selections.
Sadly we were not picked, and since we were not seeded near the top we weren’t in the running to be a backup. After lunch we went down and took down our pit. We stripped Benjy of his arm and some of his Jaguars to replace the ones we took from Marvin so he will be operable at Robot Rumble, our demo next Saturday at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham. We’ll modify the arm before St. Louis and replace everything we took from Benjy when we see him next at Championships.
We finished in time to watch the finals matches as a team in the stands. We watched on as the top seeded alliance won in two matches. Congratulations to Team 2642, The Pitt Pirates, one of the teams we beat in the finals at Palmetto; Team 1519, Mechanical Mayhem, the top seeded team after qualifications, and Team 1311, Kell Robotics. They were very deserving regional champions.
We’d also like to congratulate our friends Hawktimus Prime for winning the Judges’ Award and Pyrotech mentor Linda Whipker for winning the Woodie Flowers Award. In addition to them, congratulations to team MARS for winning Chairman’s Award.
All in all, it was a disappointing competition for us as a team, but it was exciting to see teams we know so well win such prestigious awards. We got some more practice in before Championships, and now we’ll be even more ready to hold our own against the best of the best there. It’s coming sooner than you think!
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