FIRST - Atlanta

FIRST update from the Championship competition!

.E.W. Apple Corps Robotics Team #93 attended the Championships held in Atlanta GA this past weekend. There were approximately 340 teams divided into 4 divisions at the competition this year. We were part of the Archimedes division with 86 teams. As with the other competitions the N.E.W. Apple Corp attended this year Thursday is tech inspection and practice. The team used this time to update some of the electronic controls to help us in knocking a ball off of the overpass in hybrid mode and also fine-tune the robots control software. The team was ready for qualifying matches to start on Friday. We would play 7 matches starting Friday morning ending Saturday at noon. Unfortunately the matches did not go as well as we had hoped.

We lost our first 2 matches 122 to 70 and 88 to 76 winning our next 2 matches with scores of 58 to 30 and 92 to 56. The last match of the day was one of the strangest we've seen in sometime. The first 15 seconds of the match is know as hybrid mode. Robots can run a preprogrammed string of commands or a student armed with a TV remote control can send the robot a command.

Our student or AKA Robocoach has 2 commands stop and raise arm. If were lucky enough to have a trackball on the overpass ahead of us we will try to knock it off by raising the arm. Unknown to us at the start of this match one of our teammates used the same remote commands and told our robot to raise it's arm. Because of the custom high power remote they made our Robocoach could not get our robot to stop and if that wasn't bad enough our robot raised it's arm to high. Our robot basically clothes lined itself landing on it's back with in the first 5 seconds of the match. Needless to say we lost that match even though we were with two very good robots.

On Saturday we would split our last two matches winning 94 to 64 and losing 120 to 104. Leaving us with a 3-4 record ranked 42nd out of 86 teams. We were picked by the 2nd seed alliance for the elimination round. In the quarter final round we lost the first best of 3 match before working out a winning strategy to win the last two. In the Semi finals we won the first match but, one of our team mates had a transmission problem that we couldn't repair 100% ending our run towards the finals. Tobor 11 this years robot has held up remarkably well due to the hard work of the students on the team. Not once has team 93's robot been unable to help their alliance partner in a match because of a mechanical break down.

On a side note as with all of the championship events you never know who will be there . This year was no different than in the past. During Fridays opening ceremonies one of the presenters was none other than our 41st President of the United States George H. W. Bush. One of his comments seems to have become very popular with the FIRST community. Buttons started to appear on Saturday quoting the President " FIRST robotics is like the WWF, only for smart people."

N.E.W. Apple Corps Robotics, Team #93 continues to be a very well respected and competitive team among our peers.

We had some free time while in Atlanta. We arrived mid-afternoon Wednesday, just enough time to buzz through The Georgia Aquarium. Because we got there so late they gave use 1/2 off out admission! After our hurried (but fun) underwater exploration, we decided to see if Coca-Cola World was still open. Surprisingly it was! They closed the ticket booth already but one of the security guards got one open for us so we could pay and get in as the doors were closing.

Last tour of the day (sweet). This is the new facility they recently built. It was great!And the taste testing lots of good stuff! yum!

I brought my Wii along too so we had a blast with that. C'mon guys, fight!

One thing that was very apparent as we walked around near the Georgia Dome, was the aftermath of the tornado that had struck there earlier in the Year. Lots of broken windows, torn metal sheathing, and broken glass on the sidewalks. Yikes. Scary to think of a tornado rolling down a big city street!

FIRST - Minnesota

Team #93 attended the Minnesota Regional competition held this last weekend in Minneapolis. The team was firing on all cylinders and had a great weekend. We received four new trophies and a banner! The trophies are for being part of the winning alliance, Rockwell Automation Innovation in Controls Award, Underwriters Laboratories Industrial Safety Award, and Johnson & Johnson Gracious Professionalism Award.

A special thanks to everyone who came out to watch the event and support the team! Anna, my fiancée came out all weekend. My Grandpa Dick came out on Friday and Saturday. My Mother Sue, sisters Taylor & Elizabeth, Aunt Deb and John, her son Johnny came out on Saturday. Anna's brother Dave made it on Friday.

Thursday at the competition was a practice day set up for most teams to work the bugs out of their systems. We had most of our bugs worked out from the Milwaukee regional, but made some improvements to the autonomous modes. One major update gave the robot the ability to navigate over an entire lap in 15 seconds without a driver! Very cool. This allowed us to gain critical points at the beginning of the match. During the practice matches the driver and operator got the feel of the robot back after not working with it for two weeks. Everything was working very well and it appeared to be the makings of a very good weekend.

In addition of the 54 teams there were 30 rookie teams at this competition. Many of the rookie teams were struggling to have even partially functional robots. Because of this many of the mentors and students from our team went out to help as many of the other teams as possible. We rewired an entire robot for another team, provided multiple teams with software support, helped teams work through many mechanical issues including a robot that was 60 pounds overweight, and countless teams came to us to use or borrow tools and learn from us. Near the end of the day a mother of a student from a rookie team walked by our pit where we repair our robot. She made the comment that we are one of the most intimidating teams there due to our experience and professionalism. One of the mentors responded that we’re not intimidating…we’re inspiring. We were once again ‘doing FIRST’.

Friday during the qualifying rounds we ran very well. We were in the very first match of the day and proceeded to rack up nearly ninety points. Unfortunately we were outscored by 12 points and lost this match. It was a very tough opening round but was a great way to get the crowd pumped up for this inaugural regional even. We won the next six matches and ended the day with a record of 6 wins, 1 loss, and were ranked in 2^nd out of the 54 teams attending.

Also on Friday I got terribly sick! Anna and Dave went to go get me some medicine and when they got back they found me leaving the bathroom looking 'green'. Everyone knows that it takes a lot for me to throw in the towel but after some coaxing I went back to the hotel to get some rest and get over whatever hit me.

On Friday there is a partial awards ceremony that follows the qualifying matches to recognize teams that have unique accomplishments. During this ceremony we won the Rockwell Automation Innovation in Controls award for features implemented on the robot to conserve power during the match. This award celebrated an innovative control system or application of control components to provide unique machine functions.

Saturday morning I was feeling better and headed back to the competition. We had two remaining qualifying matches. Both matches were very close. We won the first match. During the second match we had a sensor feedback failure which rendered our robot arm unusable and we lost by a very close margin. At the end of the qualifying rounds we had a record of 8 wins and 2 losses and were ranked 3^rd overall.

After the qualifying round there was an alliance selection process where the top 8 teams can pick two other teams to join them. We were in a position to either pick two other teams to join us for an alliance or be picked by a higher ranking team to join their alliance. During the alliance selection the first ranked team picked us and we joined them. Together we selected another team that complimented us and the alliance got the robots and teams ready for competition for the afternoon of best-of-3 elimination matches.

During the eliminations rounds we went up against groups of strong alliances. We had a purely offensive strategy of brute-force outscoring our competition by using two robots to hurdle the ball and the third robot operating as a race car running laps. Our alliance consistently scored between 94 to 102 points every match. Because of our strategy and well functioning robots we were able to win the quarter finals, semifinals, and finals rounds without loosing a single match.

During the awards ceremony that followed, awards were given out for various accomplishments. We won three additional awards during this ceremony.

Because of the organized manner, cleanliness, and safety features displayed we won the Underwriter Laboratories Industrial Safety award. This award celebrated the team that progressed beyond safety fundamentals by using innovative ways to eliminate or protect against hazards. The winning team consistently demonstrated excellence in industrial safety performance that showed throughout the competitions from uncrating to re-pack.

Due to the tremendous amount of support we provided to other teams we won the Johnson & Johnson Sportsmanship Award. This award celebrated outstanding sportsmanship and continuous gracious professionalism in the heat of competition, both on and off the playing field.

The third award was for being a member of the winning alliance for the robotics competition.

N.E.W. Apple Corps Robotics, Team #93 continues to be a very well respected and competitive team among our peers. We’re already looking forward to championship event coming up the weekend of April 19^th in Atlanta!

FIRST - Milwaukee Day 3

[Saturday March 15th]
Well here’s the summary of the weekend! The weekend started out fairly rough but ended awesome. We got two new trophies! One trophy is for being part of the alliance in the final rounds. A second trophy is for winning the Engineering Inspiration Award. If you want the details, keep reading…

Thursday at the competition is a practice day set up for most teams to work the bugs out of their systems. We took most of the morning on Thursday to make various electrical updates to clean up a ‘crows nest’ of wires and then turned the robot over to software to implement several updates. One major update gave the robot the ability to navigate ¾ of a lap in 15 seconds without a driver. This allowed us to gain critical points at the beginning of the match. During the practice matches the driver and operator had several communications issues and the robot ended the last two matches on its back with no way to recover. It appeared to be the makings for a very long weekend, but it was better to get the bugs worked out then than during the regular matches.

Friday during the qualifying rounds we ran very well. We lost our first match, won the next four, and lost our last match of the day. We ended the day with a record of 4 wins and 2 losses and were ranked 14^th out of the 60 teams attending. We didn’t like the losses, but felt good about our performance mainly because we were the primary scoring robot and were getting better with every match.

Saturday morning we had two remaining qualifying matches with good alliance teams and won the matches. At the end of the qualifying rounds we had a record of 6 wins and 2 losses and were ranked 8^th!

At the end of the qualifying round there was an alliance selection process where the top 8 teams can pick two other teams to join them. We were in a position to either pick two other teams to join us for an alliance or be picked by a higher ranking team and join their alliance. During the alliance selection the fourth ranked team picked us and we joined them. Together we selected another team that complimented us and the alliance got the robots and teams ready for competition for the afternoon of best-of-3 elimination matches.

During the quarter final rounds we went up against a fairly strong alliance, but because of our strategy and well functioning robots we were able to defeat them in two matches and moved onto the semifinal rounds.

In the semifinal rounds we went up against the first seeded alliance consisting of three extremely tough teams. Our only strategy was to brute-force outscore their alliance. They had two robots that could rack up a lot of points, but they had some weaknesses. The first match we won with an 88 to 62 victory. The second match we tied at 70-70. There was some confusion leading to the announcement of the score and we were all on the edge of our seats. Between the second and third match the opponent called a time-out to fix something that broke on one of their robots. They were not able to completely repair one of the robots, so it was no longer able to score very effectively. During the third match the opponent alliance (#1 seed at the competition) decided to double-team defend *our* robot to keep it from scoring. We still managed to rack up a pile of points and won with a score of 72 to 48. This moved us on to the final rounds.

The first match of the final rounds we won by a close victory of 66 to 60. During the second match one of our alliance partners had a breakdown of their drive train which meant we were playing 2-on-3. We lost this round with a score of 44 to 80. Between the second and third match we called a time-out to hopefully give our alliance partner time to make repairs. The repairs took longer than the timeout period, so a backup team was brought in to replace them. During this last match our other alliance partner had a breakdown and again we were playing 2-on-3. We lost this last with a score of 36 to 64 and ended up taking second place.

During the awards ceremony that followed, awards were given out for various accomplishments. In previous years we won the Sportsmanship Award because of the support we provided to other teams during the competition. This year we took it a huge step forward and won the Engineering Inspiration Award. This award is given to a team that advances respect and appreciation for engineering within the team’s school and community. This is the second highest award that FIRST gives out. We won this award because of the work done by the team at various community events including Oktoberfest and Walleye weekend, hosting various robotics camps for grade school students during the summer, and the many links between Team #93, the Tesla charter school, Plexus, and other supporting engineering companies in the community.

N.E.W. Apple Corps Robotics, Team #93 continues to be a very well respected and competitive team among our peers. We’re already looking forward to the next regional competition the weekend of March 28^th in Minneapolis!

FIRST - Overdrive

There have been some questions about what the game is all about. Here is the introduction video shown by FIRST at the kick-off event. It'll fill you in ;)

FIRST - Milwaukee Day 2

[Friday Saturday 14th]
Happy Pi Day! Today was our first actual competition day in the Milwaukee Regional. Yesterday was a practice day. It was a very exciting day! We tried our robot out on the field for the first time. We were all very nervous putting it all together and trying it out. For us Software guys, running autonomous was worrisome because we've *never* ran all our new code with the real robot, and the little testing we did do wasn't on a full-size field! The first autonomous clip you see here is our very first run! We try and run thr robot around the course and do a lap. The robot has to know how far to go, when to stop, when to turn. On our first run the robot quickly goes full speed, all the way across the field with no sign of slowing down or stopping! Image us, running un-tested code, seeing that clip. My heart was racing. I didn't think it would stop! Full speed ahead like the titanic right into the way. Whew, stopped in the nick of time (and thats no small feat!)

By the end of the day we had a 4-2 record and were ranked 13 out of ~60 teams. We're really happy with how well things are going. We did get one of our tusks (grabbers) bent out of shape on the last match but we were able to get fixed right away and move on. Tomorrow is our big day. Who are we? 93!