Ace24
03-23-2009, 06:07 AM
So, not sure if you've all heard, but I've been a college mentor on a local robotics team (the one my girlfriend Rika is on) and this right now is our competition season.
For those that don't know what Robotics is: Robotics is a team building, friendship building, skill building experience. You're able to get scholarships because of it. FIRST stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. Dean Kamen started it. (You know, the inventor of the segway?)
Teams are given 6 weeks to build a robot for competition. It may seem like a lot of time, but it really isn't.
This years game is Lunacy. It's a "low gravity" simulated game where you have to use the low surface friction to your advantage. To score, you have to place moon rocks (orange and purple orbit balls) into the opposing teams trailer. There are Empty cells (2 points or used to exchange for super cells) Super Cells (15 points but can only be played if an empty cell is traded for it and can only be touched in the last 15 seconds of the game) and Moon Rocks (2 points). There are "Payload Specialists" on the boarder of the field. They are entrusted with human scoring. The payload specialist can score from outposts in designated zones on the field. There are Fueling Stations (on the ends of the field, also entrusted with handling empty cells/exchange for super cells when the robot drops off the empty cell) and Out Posts (center of the field on either end. Entrusted with handing the empty cell to the robots of it's team for exchange).
Anyway, at our first regional (Finger Lakes Regional [FLR] in Rochester, NY) we came in second place. That's the highest we've ever made it in our local regional. We also went to another regional (Chesapeake Regional in Annapolis, Maryland [inside the Navy Academy]) and came in 8th. At the Chesapeake Regional we also won the highest award possible. It is the Chairman's Award. This award is for all the community service, assisting teams, starting teams etc. we have done.
Here is a video that we threw together (the part with Larry Lewis sounds funny because we had to speed it up) that was suppose to be displayed when we won the award:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgJgmhuGN0E
We also have a page showing our progress in photographs (a lot of which I took. If you look for the Canon 10D and Canon 20D, those are mine):
www.rollingthunder.smugmug.com
If you follow the links to the '09 build season, it'll show this years games and robot build.
For those that don't know what Robotics is: Robotics is a team building, friendship building, skill building experience. You're able to get scholarships because of it. FIRST stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. Dean Kamen started it. (You know, the inventor of the segway?)
Teams are given 6 weeks to build a robot for competition. It may seem like a lot of time, but it really isn't.
This years game is Lunacy. It's a "low gravity" simulated game where you have to use the low surface friction to your advantage. To score, you have to place moon rocks (orange and purple orbit balls) into the opposing teams trailer. There are Empty cells (2 points or used to exchange for super cells) Super Cells (15 points but can only be played if an empty cell is traded for it and can only be touched in the last 15 seconds of the game) and Moon Rocks (2 points). There are "Payload Specialists" on the boarder of the field. They are entrusted with human scoring. The payload specialist can score from outposts in designated zones on the field. There are Fueling Stations (on the ends of the field, also entrusted with handling empty cells/exchange for super cells when the robot drops off the empty cell) and Out Posts (center of the field on either end. Entrusted with handing the empty cell to the robots of it's team for exchange).
Anyway, at our first regional (Finger Lakes Regional [FLR] in Rochester, NY) we came in second place. That's the highest we've ever made it in our local regional. We also went to another regional (Chesapeake Regional in Annapolis, Maryland [inside the Navy Academy]) and came in 8th. At the Chesapeake Regional we also won the highest award possible. It is the Chairman's Award. This award is for all the community service, assisting teams, starting teams etc. we have done.
Here is a video that we threw together (the part with Larry Lewis sounds funny because we had to speed it up) that was suppose to be displayed when we won the award:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgJgmhuGN0E
We also have a page showing our progress in photographs (a lot of which I took. If you look for the Canon 10D and Canon 20D, those are mine):
www.rollingthunder.smugmug.com
If you follow the links to the '09 build season, it'll show this years games and robot build.