I've been busy!
I'm a member of Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance a FIRST Robotics Competition team. We have been busy.
A little recap of what FRC is about: "The varsity Sport for the Mind," FRC combines the excitement of sport with the rigors of science and technology. Under strict rules, limited resources, and time limits, teams of 25 students or more are challenged to raise funds, design a team "brand," hone teamwork skills, and build and program robots to perform prescribed tasks against a field of competitors. It’s as close to "real-world engineering" as a student can get. Volunteer professional mentors lend their time and talents to guide each team.
We get 6 weeks to prototype, design, strategize, build, program and practise. It is insanely time-consuming. I spent >300 hours over 6 weeks working. I'm our team's programmer, scouter (at competitions we keep track of other team's stats because there is "alliance-selection", which is basically picking teams to play with you in playoffs) and strategy guy. I love being part of it.
Each year there is a different game. This year's game: ULTIMATE ASCENT is played by two competing alliances on a flat, 27 x 54 foot field. Each Alliance consists of three robots, and they compete to score as many discs into their goals as they can during a two (2) - minute and fifteen (15) - second match. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa5MGEZNrf0
We chose a strategy that isn't that common. We line up besides the feeder station and shoot full court the entire match. Our robot:
CAD Model of our Shooter
We went to two "regional" competitions this year. We lost our first one (ended 43rd place) because of a bunch of technical issues and some stupid decisions. We won our second regional though! It was really special for us. There was no regional in all of western Canada until this year, and it had a lot to do with our team. (my dad was the regional director)
From here on out, we have 2 more competitions to go to. One in St.Louis (World Championships) which is always insane. We play in the Rams' stadium. The second one is IRI (Indiana Robotics Invitational which is an off-season event that we won last year. It's a crazy event that basically invites the top teams in the world. (there are >2500 teams)
So basically I haven't had any time for anything other than FRC. I posted really early in the season with a picture of hubski stickers on a practise robot. Unfortunately I don't have access to our robot (it's being shipped to St. Louis), so no cool pictures with hubski stickers, but hopefully you'll forgive me. :)
You can find us here:
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Team4334 Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/user/Team4334ATA Twitter - https://twitter.com/Team4334 Github - https://github.com/Team4334 My Github - https://github.com/joelg236
Feel free to ask any questions! I'm happy to talk about it.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielernst/sets/72157633243642.../ Some photos of some other robots in FRC in Michigan.
The one video on your Youtube channel that seemed to have your robot in action (from what I could tell) was really hazy and short. Do you have one of it executing a "goal"? (And what's the standard strategy that your team bypassed? Retrieving discs and moving closer to the goal before shooting?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqhi9QaKiUc The standard strategies are to be a "cycle shooter", meaning going to the feeder station to pick up discs and shooting at the pyramid. Some robots also climb all the way to the top of the pyramid. We only hang on the first rung.