Robot

Each year FLL Challenge teams are tasked with building and coding an autonomous robot to compete in a robot game completing missions for points on a mat. At competitions we share our robot design process in our judging session, and we also get to compete in the robot game. You can learn more about our robot, T.A.G. (which stands for Team Alpha Geek) below.

       Identify

After looking at all of the missions for this season's robot game, we decided which teammates would work from which home area. We wanted to have an even number of rookies and veterans on each side. Each coding team was called red side, or blue side corresponding to the home area they would opperate from. Each side then decided which missions they would go for. We collectively decided that each side would go for missions close to their home area, and required similar motions like pushing or lifting. We also noticed that delivering the audience members and experts was a big part of this season's robot game, This influenced the missions we attempted, because we wanted to deliver as many experts and audience members as possible.

Design

After knowing what our robot needed to include, we built 2 identical robots, one for each home area, so that both red side and blue side could code at the same time, which allowed us to get way more things done at each meeting. To build our robot, we worked in pairs, and everybody got a chance to code and build attachments. One unique thing about our team is every member codes!

Iterate

Of course, we didn't just stick with all of our original robot and attachment designs. One attachment that ended up going through over many iterations, was our people dropper, that we use to deliver audience member to the target areas. While we worked in pairs to build our robot, other members of our team was brainstorming ideas on how to deliver the experts and audience members. We thought of everything from a ferris wheel, to a gated double ramp. We didn't use any of our originally brainstormed ideas, but they helped inspire our final design. Our robot also went through iterations, like how we made the connections points from the hub to the structure more secure, so now our hub will not come off accidentally. 

Communication

With each side using a different robot, we had to make sure that the robots remained identical throughout the entire season. To do this, we met periodically to check the differences between the robots. If we found any, one of us would go home and make them identical again. We also wanted to make sure that each side knew what the other side was doing. We achieved this by creating a robot log that we filled out after every meeting, taking note of what each coding side did. 

Slip On Attachments

One thing that we decided to improve on from last season was to make our transitions quicker, because we discovered that we actually spent more time in the home area, than on the mat scoring points. To make our transitions quicker, we decided that all of our attachments would be slip on and easy to take off. Below, you'll see examples of one of our slip on attachments.