We're Moving On!

Post date: Jan 26, 2014 4:34:36 PM

    At the North Carolina Eastern Regional Qualifier yesterday, The Bio-Bots came out with a strong, consistent performance and the award for

Best Engineering Notebook!

    In the five Qualifying rounds, we went 2-3, and were first in game points. In our first match, paired with 7682 Cary Christian School Knights, our autonomous missed its block, but we got on the ramp. In Tele-op, we scored a few blocks in the baskets before our arm jammed in the down position, and after that we got a few more blocks into the floor goal in a loss.

    In our second round we were paired with the host team 2901 Purple Gears. The autonomous program, with a slight tweak, worked beautifully,

and continued to do so for the rest of the day. The arm (un-stuck between rounds) also worked well, and we scored multiple trips of blocks into the baskets. Purple Gears raised the flag to the high position while we hung on the bar to clinch our first win.

    The third and fourth rounds, paired with 8282 Bearatroopers! and 6078 RoboUN, the autonomous worked, we scored blocks consistently, and we hung in both. Bearatroopers! raised the flag, but RoboUN got stuck on a block and were unable to move. Our opponents matched our alliance in Autonomous and Endgame, and they out-scored us with the blocks in two losses.

    In our fifth round, we were paired with 7083 Team Tundrabots. They could hang but not do the flag, so at first we strategized for them to hang

and us raise the flag. Then there was a long discussion: In one of our meetings this past week, we attached a bar to the front of our hook for another team to hang off of. The discussion was: do we dare? In the end, Tundrabots decided to try for the double hang....

    Autonomous worked for both of us, and the IR beacon was underneath Tundrabots' basket, so that was good for 20 extra points. We both scored blocks into opposite outer baskets, keeping it level. When the endgame started, we drove onto the ramp from opposite directions ... we both extended our arms ... Bio-bots hooked and pulled up ... Tundrabots hooked on our bar ... but their hook was on top of our bar support and 

slipped off as they started hanging! They lined up for a second try, but the timer ran out as they tried to re-hook!  Almost!

    We finished 6th in the Qualifying points, and we were selected by the 3-seed team, 5270 Team Q, to be their Elimination round partner. 

In game 1 against the 2-seed 6123 Mechanical Marauders and their partner, 3587 Unparalleled Processing, Autonomous worked, we scored several blocks, keeping it level, Team Q raised the flag, and we went to hang. The down-pulling string snapped!

    We still won the match, but our hanging ability was bust. We tried to repair it in time, but we only got one string on, without our block scoop, before game 2 started. Autonomous worked, but without our scoop, we were helpless with the blocks. Q raised the flag, and we tried to hang on

one string. We pulled up, but then the motor started slipping under the weight of our robot. We lost that match. We got the scoop back on, but we cut the single down string to hopefully increase the speed of the up string, right before finding out that they gave us the hang since we were up

for 5 seconds.

    In the final match in the best-of-3, we realized that we plugged the scoop servos into the wrong ports when it folded down and our robot jumped on top of it. We got the autonomous block in, but we failed to get onto the bridge. We scored the blocks (operating the scoop upside-down), and in the endgame we tried to raise the flag while Team Q tried to hang. We came in too fast and knocked our spinner to pieces, and Team Q's hanging mechanism jammed. We lost the match and the series.

    Mechanical Marauders and Unparalleled Processing went on to defeat the 1-seed team, Tundrabots and their partner, 3735 Raptors, 2-1 in the Championship Round.

    At the Awards Ceremony, they got the champion and finalist alliance trophies mixed up! :)  Team Q won the Motivate award (team spirit), and 

we received the Think Award (notebook). The Think Award winner has a place in the State Tournament, so we are going! Three more weeks of the FIRST Tech Challenge!