Robotics Qualifying Competition

I'm going to tell you about my awesome experience last weekend with my robotics team. On the 31st, the robotics team of which I am a part, had its second competition of this year. Our team, the Loveland Nuts and Bolts (FTC 5040), went to Walnut Hills High School on Saturday to compete in the qualifying round of the First Tech Challenge competition. We got there around 8:30 AM, and we left around 7:00 PM.

When I got there, I saw about 20 other FTC teams from around the area, all working hard to make last-minute adjustments and test their 'bots. Competitions began about 2 hours after we all arrived. Then, the main FTC competition was held in a large gymnasium upstairs, while the work and testing area was downstairs in the "pit".

The competition is based on a challenge that is changed each year. This year, our challenge involved picking up white whiffle balls and dumping them into plastic tubes of various sizes. There are two main portions in a match: First of all, the robot gets to score in the first 30 seconds by running an autonomous program, or a program that operates on its own without user control. Then, the tele-op period begins. During this section, we use two Xbox controllers to maneuver. 

In our first round, we ended up doing terribly: One of our two controllers broke, and our robot was stuck for the majority of that match. But then, we allied with a very strong team, and fought our way back to the top. In the end, we finished 4^th, giving us the opportunity to form an official alliance with 2 other teams. Even though our alliance lost in the end (by a very small margin, mind you!), we won the Inspire Award, which is actually the first criterion for ADVANCEMENT TO STATE. 

So, in the end, our team qualified to get to State. Also, we won a Promote Award for our video that another team member and I made promoting FIRST, the organization sponsoring the robotics FTC program. Wish us luck on February 13/14!

Photo Credit: Radu Vasilescu (Canon EOS 6d, ISO 6400, f/4.0)