Link to progress on CNC Milling Machine: http://xyzzymachine.blogspot.com/
The robot successfully arrived back from Atlanta this afternoon. The crate was slightly damaged--it looked as though it had been impaled with a forklift prong, but the contents were all fine. After unloading the crate, we tried to drive the robot, but it apparently has a short, so that'll have to wait. We'll have a meeting on Monday for those not busy with AP prep to do some organization of Robotland, and possibly try and fix the robot.
Our final day at the Championship was an amazing one. we got
up early in order to get the best seats for our matches
today. Our robot performed quite well, but we lost both our
matches to some amazing teams. Our final record, then, was 2
wins and 5 losses, placing us 66th out of 85 teams in the
Newton Division.
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After the Newton champions, Teams 968, 233, and 60, had
been crowned in an intense set of matches, we proceeded to
Einstein Field. There, between the presentation of national
awards, the best teams in the world competed. Newton fell to
Galileo in the third round of a penalty-ridden matchup.
Curie beat Archimedes, for a Curie-Galileo final. Galileo's
alliance of 1114, 217, and 148 was ultimately triumphant.
Our team didn't win any awards, but all those that did were
each exceptional in those particular areas and truly
deserved to win.
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To cap off the season, after finishing packing up our pit
area and crating our robot for shipping back home, everyone
went to Centennial Park for the end-of-season party. It was
carnival-style, with inflated obstacle courses and
activities, games, karaoke, a climbing wall, rides, prizes
and food. And then, at the very end, a spectacular fireworks
show. Hooray for FIRST Overdrive 2008!
Today was the first day of qualification matches. The
competition officially began with the Opening Ceremonies,
which recognized the major sponsors of FIRST and
acknowledged several award winners as well as including
statements by Dean Kamen, the founder of FIRST, Woodie
Flowers, FIRST advisor, and Paul Guidonis, the president of
FIRST who'd been with us at our legislative presentation.
They were also joined by former President George H. W. Bush,
who was one of the major supporters of FIRST at its
incenption. Qualifying matches began shortly afterwards. Our
robot performed well, but our alliances were not always
effective. We lost our first two matches and won the next
two, leaving us with a record of 2-2 and a ranking of 51 out
of 85 teams in our division. Tomorrow, we have an additional
two matches before the elimination rounds begin.
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After matches today, we took a group photo (that we hope to
have posted here soon) and visited the Georgia Aquarium,
which was a very cool, interactive aquarium. Tomorrow will
be the last day of competition and the FIRST Finale party in
the evening. We're all looking forward to it.
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EDIT: We also gave our Chairman's Award presentation, which
was well-recieved.
Today was the first day of the Championship in Atlanta. We had several practice matches in the Georgia Dome and continued to work on the robot. It was a somewhat glitchy day for us, as a number of small things went wrong that caused us to not do very well; some connections were wrong, the chain came off once. We made some adjustments to the autonomous code--with the encoders on the wheels working, we can now drive based on distance, rather than time interval. It was really cool to watch all of the different robots--the best worldwide--playing the game, and to see some of the really nnovative desgns. There's teams from all around the country here, as well as international teams from such places as Mexico and Israel. Afterwards, we had dinner at the CNN tower food court, then played in the fountain in Centennial Park. Tomorrow, official qualifying matches begin.
The team arrived safely in Atlanta today after several hours of travelling. A small crew went into the pits in the Georgia Dome to uncrate the robot, which looked none the worse for travelling all the way from Tacoma. Afterwards, we all had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. Tomorrow, we'll be competing in practice rounds and working more on refining our robot's driving. It's going to be a very exciting competition!
Hello from Phoenix! The first leg of our journey is complete. In about an hour we'll be on a plane to Atlanta, where we'll get ready to compete in the FRC Championship. Our team is in the Newton division (out of four, Newton, Curie, Galileo, and Archimedes) and will be competing there with over eighty other teams. Streaming video of the competition is available here: http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/robotics/first/atlanta-finals-2008/
Apologies about the lateness of this update!
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The final day of the Microsoft Regional was a very exciting
one. Our team did very well in our remaining qualifying
matches, and by the end of those rounds was seeded second,
with a record of 8 wins, 2 losses, and 1 tie and an average
score of 25.5 points per round we competed in. As one of the
top eight teams, we led a three-team alliance in the
elimination rounds. We invited teams 488 and 1696 to join us
on our alliance. After strategizing during the lunch break,
our alliance won our first two quarterfinal matches to
progress to the semifinals. There, we were defeated by the
3rd seeded alliance that went on the win the competition.
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The final matches, between the 1st and 3rd seeded alliances
were intense, and it was a lot of fun to watch the robots
compete even from the stands. We’re quite pleased with our
performance at this competition. By the latter half of the
matches, we were consistently making about eight laps around
the track each match (16 points) and had the capability to
cross four lines in the hybrid period, reliably crossing at
least two (8-20 points).
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After all the matches had ended, we packed up our robot and
tools in our crate for shipping to Atlanta, GA, where we
will attend the national championship April 17-19. We’ll
be sending updates from there as well.
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P.S. Congratulations to Team 488 (Team XBot) on winning the
Microsoft Seattle Regional Chairman’s Award!
Today was our second day of the Microsoft Regional. The day
got off to a slow start as we were disabled in our first
match. After a frantic hour in the pits repairing
connections to the motors as matches progressed without us,
we rushed back to the playing field with the robot and some
more drive code modifications. The remainder of our matches
were very successful, as we refined the robot and developed
strategies. One match in particular was exceptionally good,
as we scored an incredible thirty-four points out of our
team’s total thirty-six. Things only got better as the day
went on, and by the end of matches for today, we were fifth
out of thirty-one teams, and are in a good position going
into the final qualifying matches to be one of the alliance
leaders for the finals—an accomplishment unmatched in the
last four years of our team. At the Friday awards ceremony,
we received another piece of exciting news, as our team was
the recipient of the Judges’ Award, for the “Three
S’s” of our team strategy—small, speedy, and simple.
Today was the first day of the Microsoft Seattle Regional.
Our team woke up bright and early in order to arrive at the
Greater Tacoma Convention and Trade Center early to unpack.
Dressed in our full Issaquah robotics society regalia of
purple shirts and yellow ties, we socialized with other
teams as we anxiously awaited the opening of the pits. When
the doors opened at 8:30, we entered the pit area and set up
our workspace. For our pit station, we erected some cubical
walls to decorate and organize our space. We mounted our
sponsor signs on the robot and in our pit area, and hung our
team flag up in the stands where our team watched the
matches. All day from 9 until 4, we got a taste of what the
competition tomorrow will be like as we took our turns in
practice matches on the playing field set up inside the
convention center. Having made some improvements to our
driving code since our last competition in Portland, our
early matches went quite well. In our first match, we made
13 laps around the track in five minutes, then 8 laps in
two. This is a vast improvement over our record in Portland,
where we averaged about five laps a game. Throughout the
day, we continued to refine our programming and were able to
participate in many practice matches, as there were few
mechanical problems. With all of this practice, and the
modifications we've made to the robot, we're more confident
and feel more ready for the competition than we've ever
been.