by The Hitchhikers | Apr 6, 2012 | Competitions
The North Carolina Regional begins today at 8:30am, and we’re all pumped and ready to go! After a successful day of practice runs and cutting up our robot to fit the weight limit, Benjy is finally ready to take on the field once again. Good luck to all the other teams participating!
Some useful links:
- NC Regional match schedule
Live Justin.TV stream of the regional (Note: Due to internet issues at the regional, we are unable to stream the events. We apologize for the inconvenience.)
by The Hitchhikers | Mar 30, 2012 | Competitions
The Hitchhikers are the winners of the 2012 FRC Palmetto Regional in Charleston, South Carolina! In an alliance with Team 2640, The Hotbotz; Team 281, The Green Villains; and Team 2815, InCockNito; we are the regional champions at our first regional of 2012. This qualifies us to compete in Championships in St. Louis at the end of April.
Thursday was the first day of competition, and the day we spent getting Benjy back into working order. After setting up our pit, we began reorganizing Benjy and getting all his minute details into perfectly working order. Among the things to fix was the pneumatic system, the bridge arm, attaching the sponsor logos, and changing the wheels from six to eight inches. We missed our first practice match because we had no code, but we were able to make two of our last three. They turned out to provide valuable experience for our drive team.
Friday morning was the start of qualification matches (For a complete record of our results, check out The Blue Alliance). Before the lunch break, we went 1-3 on our alliances and seeded in the mid-twenties out of 43 teams. Right after our fourth match, we also got the final piece of Benjy working: the bridge arm. After a test on the practice field, we broke for lunch, and apparently eating hamburgers for lunch was our lucky charm. After the break we won all four of our matches. Nothing broke, nothing needed to be fixed. We ended the day 5-3 seeded fifteenth and on a hot streak.
Saturday was the final day of competition. We started the day with a fifth straight win and our first coopertition balance, points that proved extremely important to ranking. We lost our next two matches, but again balanced coopertition twice. We finished up qualifications seeded fifteenth again, with high hopes for being picked by an alliance for eliminations. To our pleasant surprise, we were picked second overall by The Hotbotz to join them as the #2 alliance. To complete our alliance we chose The Green Villains.
In the quarter finals, we took the first match with a decent margin, 34-19. We lost the second match by more than 20, tying us at one match a piece, at least partially because The Green Villains could not connect to their robot due to an unknown computer error. The third match was our closest of the day, a one point nail-biter to advance to the semifinals. Unfortunately The Green Villains broke a steel shaft that fed balls into their shooter during the final match. They were unable to fix or replace it and were forced to withdraw from the elimination matches. They were quickly replaced by InCockNito for the semifinals and eventually finals.
In the semifinals, we had to quickly adjust to the different strategy of our new alliance member. Unfortunately they did not move in the first match, which we lost. They quickly left to figure out what the problem was, and it turned out their wireless radio’s wires were not well-connected to their power distribution board. They fixed their wiring and were back for the next match. We scored 40 points in both the second and third match and won them both by more than twenty.
In the finals, we found ourselves pitted against the eighth seeded alliance, made up of Teams 2642, 343, and 4073. In the first match, we won by only seven points. It was one of the tensest matches of the day and it was an amazing feeling to win it to take the lead in the finals. The second match was close to the wire. Before the endgame we held only a one point lead because of baskets, and one team from each alliance kept shooting until the very end of the match. Fortunately we kept our one point lead thanks to shooting by InCockNito. Both alliances tried to double balance on the bridge in the last minute. We managed to balance and turned our attention to the red alliance’s bridge. As we watched, one of the drivers over-corrected and caused one of their allied robots to flip over. With nearly thirty seconds left in the match, we started celebrating. We won the match 38-17. Soon after its completion, the rest of the students on our four teams rushed the field.
After many minutes of celebration we calmed down enough to return to the stands and watch the awards presentation. In addition to the Regional Champion award, we also won the Team Spirit Award for our buttons, orange and blue towels, orange foam thumbs, orange and blue pit, large whale poster, 42 slip contest: we taped small slips around the arena and anyone who found one and brought it back to us received a shoulder mouse, and the various animals we hung around our pit: whales, dolphins, and more mice.
All in all, the South Carolina Regional was the highlight of our season–so far at least! Being the regional champions was a blast and winning the Team Spirit Award was unexpected, but certainly not undeserved. A round of applause for our Spirit subteam, both of you! Also a big round of applause to the Green Villains for winning the regional Chairman’s Award! We can’t wait to see you guys in North Carolina and St. Louis!
Speaking of St. Louis, we as a team confirmed our attendance to world championships. We will be in St. Louis at the end of April. But first we’ll be in Raleigh, our backyard, for the North Carolina Regional. Competition is expected to be fierce, so we’re raring to go! We’re excited to see all the teams there, especially the Green Villains and Pyrotech. Good luck to you all!
Here’s a quick breakdown of how the NC Regional will go:
- Thursday, April 5: Teams will participate in practice matches from 10am until around 4pm.
- Friday, April 6: Qualification matches begin around 10am and continue until about 4pm. Some awards will be given out that afternoon. The team social is that night for all team members.
- Saturday, April 7: Qualification matches begin again around 10am again and will end shortly before lunch. Alliances will be selected directly before the lunch break and elimination matches will begin immediately after. When they are completed, the second awards ceremony will give out the rest of the awards. All activities will happen at Dorton Arena, 1025 Blue Ridge Road, Raleigh, NC 27607.
Countdowns:
- NC Regional: 7 days
- Championships: 28 days
- See you all in a week!
by The Hitchhikers | Feb 22, 2012 | Build season
The final day of build season has come and gone. In the past it was known as Ship, but now it’s known as Bag and Tag. Instead of FedEx making rounds to collect thousands of robots around the world, now teams will be responsible for moving their robot to competition themselves.
Around 8:30 last night, the Hitchhikers finished up their changes on Benji, finalizing the build and tweaking the code. We managed to fit in some time to drive Benji around and shoot some baskets between all the work and modifications.
But all good things must end, and Benji was bagged and tagged before we all left for the night. The very last things were perfected and then Benji was locked away to await our trip to South Carolina in exactly one month.
Just because build season has ended doesn’t mean work stops for us. We still have some building and programming left to do. If we can fit it in, we also have to let our drivers get some training and work out their strategy. Oh no, the work during build season is more intense, but it certainly isn’t the only work we do.
All in all, our build season was a huge success. We managed to bag a working robot in Benji and not have to hold back too many pieces. Nothing catastrophic happened to Benji or any member of the team, which is something very important in FIRST.
Keep your eyes open over the next days and weeks for pictures and videos of Benji. Just because we can’t touch him doesn’t mean we can’t share him.
If you use Twitter, don’t forget to follow us @team2059. We’ll be keeping our feed up to date with our activities throughout the season, up to our competitions and beyond.
See you all in South Carolina!
by The Hitchhikers | Feb 21, 2012 | Build season
The final day is upon us all! After six weeks of frantic planning, building, and testing, bag and tag day is here. Before midnight tonight, every FRC team will have to stop working and put a bag around their robot. It will have no fresh air until their first regional competition. Then will begin a frantic three days of fixing and competing.
Today the Hitchhikers will begin their last long workday before a well-deserved break. Starting at nine, we will work until midnight when we zip Benjy away for just over a month until the South Carolina regional in Charleston, March 22th to 24th.
Many things remain to be tweaked on Benjy today, and our twitter feed will be updating with periodic reports on his status.
Remember teams! Zip by midnight, then take a hard-earned break. You’ve done well; you deserve it.
Upcoming dates:
- Bag and tag: Today!
- South Carolina regional: 30 days
- North Carolina regional: 44 days
- Championships in St. Louis: 67 days
by The Hitchhikers | Feb 13, 2012 | Build season
Week Six Already?
It’s hard to believe, but the final week of build season is already here! It’s an exciting time for every team, one full of challenges and achievements, one full of undertakings and overcomings. One full of successes and failures.
The Hitchhikers have had a mixed bag of all these in the past week and on Saturday. On February 10, we met for our first officially extended meeting of the season, staying two extra hours. Drafting of both Chairmans and the Woodie Flower Award submissions were begun from the outlines our outreach team made, the robot’s tower was assembled, and the frame for the shooter was finished.
Saturday saw the longest workday of the season thus far (over thirteen hours!) and the compilation of the qualities each team will see. Progress was made, but not as much as many would have wished to see. The robot’s base and tower were nearly completed and the shooter was finished.
Unfortunately, the shooter made for the robot was not as successful as the prototype developed by the team. Due to a variety of factors, it does not shoot the ball as far. Immediately after the shooter was experimented with, revisions were worked on it to procure a better result. At the end of the night, results had improved.
After several hours of work Saturday morning, the first drafts of the Woodie Flowers and Chairmans awards were completed just before lunchtime. Afterward they were sent through an initial revising process and will continue to be edited and perfected until they are submitted. Teams, these awards are due on the sixteenth! Don’t forget and miss the deadline!
The Hitchhikers have now registered for two regionals. We will be attending both the North and South Carolina competitions. Those are coming up in little over five weeks.
Countdowns:
- Award Submissions: 2/16 (4 days)
- Bag and Tag/Ship: 2/21 (9 days)
- SC Regional: 3/22-24 (39 days)
- NC Regional: 4/5-7 (53 days)
- Championships: 4/28-30 (76 days)
by The Hitchhikers | Feb 12, 2012 | Build season
It moves! Our robot has finally begun to zip around the build room with ease. Wheels are mounted, our program works, and we’ve begun to test everyone’s driving skills. We had our first driver tests today and it seems like everyone is somewhat competent at not crashing into things.
A big announcement, we’re having special guests tomorrow! Hawktimus Prime is coming to visit and work together with The Hitchhikers. We hope to have a fun and productive time with our guests.
Recent Comments