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FIRST Robotics 2010

Antinos

Antinos

Slut for Spinners
I am on my school's robotics team, the Mech Warriors(573) and we're having a successful season so far. This year, the game is basically soccer, with a few unique twists to it. We just had our first competition over the weekend and we ended up winning the Ann Arbor District competition. It was a blast.

The game is pretty interesting. It starts off with a 15 second autonomous period where the robots perform a pre-programmed kick or two. The game then goes into teleoperated mode with joysticks or video game controllers. Blue scores on the blue goals and red scores on the red goals:

AnnArbor2010003.jpg


Our robot was quite successful all around the field. We could score from the far section and the near section and we could also fish balls out of corners and kick them toward the goal:

AnnArbor2010019.jpg


We could also kick multiple balls at a time with our unique design. Our design is basically a paddle which we call a beater bar. While it spins, we drive forward and can kick as many balls that are in front of us:

AnnArbor2010028.jpg


After day one, we were in first place, but by the end of qualifications, we ended up in third. After choosing alliance partners, we ended up as the second seed:

AnnArbor2010044.jpg


As we won more and more matches, the energy level went up. We were getting more and more pumped:

AnnArbor2010001.jpg


It was quite a nail biter in the finals, but we came out on top by one point! The crowd erupted and we were going nuts. A lot of us started crying. It was quite an experience:

AnnArbor2010020.jpg


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwlHlx-QAIQ[/youtube]

Our next competition is in two weeks. We're looking forward to it, but this one is going to be very difficult. There will be some very good teams there, and the elimination matches are going to look like the clash of the Titans. I'll be sure to post those results at the end of the month.
 
I just don't get how you would even go about building something like that. I can't even build like, a K-nex toy, let alone something to that calibur :P . Looks like a good time though, maybe a bit nerdy, but nothing wrong with that!

Congratsies.
 
^Lolz, Robot wars was epic.

Looks awesome and congrats on the win. Why the hell don't they hold competitions like that in the UK?
 
peep said:
Why the hell don't they hold competitions like that in the UK?
Click to expand...
QFT. That looks awesome. I want a go. And also, well done for winning that round.

And Robot Wars was indeed amazing.
 
Thank you all.

Taylor: It is nerdy, but the FIRST organization's goal is to let nerds know that it's ok to be a nerd, that we can be who we are and not worry about it. We can be ourselves and have fun, and experience things like this.

Ollie: I used to watch battle bots when I was younger, so I was kind of inspired.

Peep: FIRST is an international competition and there are teams in England. Here's one for example:

http://www.systemetric.org/

I'm not sure if they have competitions in England, but there are teams from all around the world that compete.
 
Taylor: It is nerdy, but the FIRST organization's goal is to let nerds know that it's ok to be a nerd, that we can be who we are and not worry about it. We can be ourselves and have fun, and experience things like this.
Click to expand...

I never meant it as a bad thing! Haha, I'm a nerd myself so it's not like I'm insulting you.. I think you have to be insanely smart to build something like that, so take it as a compliment.
 
^I do take it as a compliment. If you notice in the photos, there's some other robots that look like absolute ****. We don't have a machine shop at our school, so it's something when our robot looks nicer than other robots that were built in a machine shop. :D
 
^We still have tools, we just don't have precision tools. When I say a machine shop, I mean like a car repair garage basically. We have a corner of a classroom with a drill press, band saw, grinder, belt sander, and a bunch of other portable power tools. They aren't very precise and aren't in good shape. Other schools have many more large precision tools in great shape.
 
Tomorrow starts another weekend of robotics competition. I'm getting really excited. This competition is going to be very tough and it's anybody's game at this point.
 
Well, this past weekend's robotics competition is done. It was quite a tough competition, and we did alright. Friday morning, we showed everybody what we could do. Everybody knew we were the Ann Arbor District champs and saw that we were a threat. At lunch time, we were in 5th place and only 5 points out of 1st. After lunch, team members started to leave due to other plans and we lost a lot of our scouting. Teams also started to defend us and we were getting partnered with some absolutely awful teams. The only thing that wasn't going wrong for us was that our robot didn't break. We walked out on Friday night in 27th place.

Saturday morning we were back with a new attitude, ready to be a team again. Our first match was a big one. We were verse the number 1 seed with an unstoppable(so far) device on their robot. We broke out our secret weapon and stopped them. We not only won the match, but we gained the respect of every team in the building. We won every qualifier match after that. At the end of the Qualifiers, we were in 11th, a huge improvement. We were picked by the 3rd seed team and we made in through the quarterfinals. Unfortunately, we were eliminated in the semifinals by teams that were just a little bit better than us.

Although we were knocked out, we really didn't mind. We were already qualified for the State Championship and we got to tear down our pits instead of watching the finals. We won the Best Website award and the Gracious Professionalism award, as well as the respect of all the other teams.

Here's some pictures:

Our pits with the new addition:
TroyAthens2010002.jpg


Our awesome awards that we made and gave away:
TroyAthens2010005.jpg


Dean Kamen, founder of FIRST and inventor of the Segway:
TroyAthens2010015.jpg


After the blue robot moved, we scored four goals at once:
TroyAthens2010028.jpg


One of the teams that beat us verse us in a qualifier. I like their robot:
TroyAthens2010044.jpg


Kicking a ball:
TroyAthens2010065.jpg


Ok, this is an interesting photo. Here are two of the three robots that won the finals verse eachother in a qualifier. Team 217 is basically a war machine. They're fast, highly maneuverable, tough, built by engineers, and ungracious. The other team, 469, is almost as bad. They drive into the tunnel and have pneumatics that wedge themselves in the tunnel. They then deploy their chutes so they can catch balls and roll them back down into the goals. It manipulates the rules and shouldn't be allowed, but it is. 469 is the team that we stopped:
TroyAthens2010039.jpg


Us verse 217:
TroyAthens2010054.jpg


TroyAthens2010055.jpg


Lastly, a video of us stopping 469:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA0FSXlvf_Q[/youtube]

The next competition is the state championship and we are pumped. Right now, we are 9th in the state, and it's looking very good that we are going to go to Atlanta for the world championship. Since Michigan is one of the leaders in FIRST and engineering/technology in the world, being 9th in the state is basically being 9th in the world, so it's a great feeling.
 
Triple post...whatever.

Lots of good news. Basically, we are being talked about across the state. We walked by a team member who is on that really good team we beat(in that video), team 469, and he was talking on the phone. When we walked by, he said "That team that blocked us from the tunnel just got here." We were walking down a hallway to visit more pits, and we were talking about what that guy said, and a few members from the team that was paired with 469 and when they walked by they started laughing. Later on, a team from west Michigan approached us in our pits and asked us if we knew the team who stopped 469 last weekend. We laughed, told them it was us, and told them where they could find the video at.

We also found out that the teams that have already registered for the World Championship are removed from the top 9 in Michigan, so instead of 9th, we're 3rd in line as of now for Atlanta.

Yeah, I'm so jacked right now.
 
Yep, no replies...whatever.

After all the qualification matches, we were ranked 5th out of 65 teams in the Michigan State Championship. Unfortunately, somebody failed at scouting and we picked a robot that we shouldn't have for our first pick. We ended up getting eliminated in the quarterfinals, but we still qualified for Atlanta! We're so pumped for this trip, since we had to win our way into the world championship and we did it.

By the way, I will be able to go to Six Flags over Georgia while I'm there as well. There's a plus!
 
YAY SFOG!

But yah, your robot is pretty cool and some of the other ones are pretty wicked, though I'm not understanding exactly what they have to do.

Congrats though.
 
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