I know that Champs ended almost a week ago but I've been studying for exams and haven't had time to post, so lets see what I can remember.
I had my last class Thursday morning so I didn't get into St. Louis til around 5 and by that point I had missed our first two matches. I let Andrew coach the rest of the day Thursday and we finished the day 0-4 with a couple of coop points. Friday didn't get much better but we did go 2-2 and had a couple of good partners. We lost our only match on Saturday and didn't get picked which rapped up a much improved season compared to last year, but I still feel like we left a lot on the table.
Moving on from 2059's Championship to mine. Overall I had a great time even with the team not performing well. I got to check out and take some pictures of a number of this year's best robot as well as talk to a number of FRC celebrities. I worked out that Krunch was also in our division so I got a chance to hang out with them a bunch, which was pretty cool.
I've got a couple of Thank yous and then I'll end this post and get back to studying:
Thanks to all of the students that took some time to tell me about their robot and design process, it was much appreciated and I got a number of good pictures.
Thanks to Andy Baker for taking time out his busy Championship to talk to me and give me a little advice as well!
Thanks to my former Krunch mentor Tom Filipek for coming over to check out 2059's robot. I know it seems weird for me to be thanking someone for looking at our robot, but when it's one of your old mentors who helped to teach you a lot of thing that you use as a mentor , its nice for them to come and see how your doing.
And finally to all the volunteers, FIRST wouldn't be the same without you.
Now that the season is over what am I going to for seven months?
Friday, May 4, 2012
Thursday, April 19, 2012
How to fix the FIRST Championship
Next week is the 21st edition of the FIRST Championship and it will be the largest one yet. It will not only feature FLL and FTC teams but almost 400 FRC teams in four divisions. This is up from 352 last years and its starting to get to the point where it is too big and something need to be done. Over the past couple of weeks there have been numerous thread on Chief Delphi discussing ways to fix Championship and most revolve around moving it to a larger venue. I have my own idea which I will lay out below and it doesn't involve moving to a new venue and here it is:
Before I get to the FRC Championship I want to discuss the FTC Championship and FLL World Festival. There are around 2000 FTC teams throughout the world and 128 of them compete at Championship which is 6% of all FTC teams. Compare that to FRC's 17% participation at Championship and your average FTC team will make there Championship once every 15 years. That means that like FRC most FTC students will never make Championship in there time on their team. Lego Leagues' percentages are even worse because of the quantity of teams, something like over 5000. On top of that as long as FRC is in the same building both FTC and FLL is be overshadowed and won't be able to get much recognition.
To fix this and improve both FRC's championship as well as FTC and FLL's I would give them there own championship event earlier in the year. Reasoning behind it being earlier is that their seasons start in September and for FLL is done before the end of the year. FTC events stretch into the FRC season and normally end week after build season ends. I would compress the FTC season to have all State events end at the end of January and then have the Championship in the off-week between Week 0 and Week 1. As for location, because of the time of the year it has to be somewhere warm and I would say the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL. Reasons for Orlando: Its warmish in February (High 73, Low 52 courtesy of Wikipedia) and Disney World and Universal are only a short drive away. The OCCC is one of the largest convention centers in the nation and could fit a FTC/FLL Championship more than double the size of the current one. The brand new FTC Championship and FLL World Festival would also give FRC teams that also have an FTC team as part of their program a chance for the same students to participate in both championships, something that isn't really possible now.
With FTC and FLL having there own event it opens up a lot of space in the America's Center for FRC pits. Now having 150 teams in a division is no better than having a 100 teams per division, so with this new found space FRC would expand from four divisions to eight. Archimedes, Curie, Galileo, and Newton would be join by new divisions tentatively named Kamen, Flowers, Lavery, and Baker. I think it would be possible to fit all nine field in the dome with Einstein at one end, three along each sideline, and two at the other end, each in one corner of that end. It might be a little cramped but it would be an awesome sight to see.
Each of the eight division would have between 70 and 75 teams meaning there would be around 560 teams at Championship. In the short term that means that Michigan and MAR can have a few extra championship spots, couple that with the new regionals and you have around 125 extra open registration spots at Championship. I could delve more into open registration and how spots should be divided up but I'll save that for another blog post either this week or after Champs. As for scheduling, it would stay basically the same except that qualification matches would stop around 10:30 on Saturday so alliance can be done around 11:00 and Elimination matches can start at 12:00 giving an extra hour for the extra matches on Einstein.
Hopefully I've been able to illustrate my idea pretty well and I'll be back later with a post about the District system.
Before I get to the FRC Championship I want to discuss the FTC Championship and FLL World Festival. There are around 2000 FTC teams throughout the world and 128 of them compete at Championship which is 6% of all FTC teams. Compare that to FRC's 17% participation at Championship and your average FTC team will make there Championship once every 15 years. That means that like FRC most FTC students will never make Championship in there time on their team. Lego Leagues' percentages are even worse because of the quantity of teams, something like over 5000. On top of that as long as FRC is in the same building both FTC and FLL is be overshadowed and won't be able to get much recognition.
To fix this and improve both FRC's championship as well as FTC and FLL's I would give them there own championship event earlier in the year. Reasoning behind it being earlier is that their seasons start in September and for FLL is done before the end of the year. FTC events stretch into the FRC season and normally end week after build season ends. I would compress the FTC season to have all State events end at the end of January and then have the Championship in the off-week between Week 0 and Week 1. As for location, because of the time of the year it has to be somewhere warm and I would say the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL. Reasons for Orlando: Its warmish in February (High 73, Low 52 courtesy of Wikipedia) and Disney World and Universal are only a short drive away. The OCCC is one of the largest convention centers in the nation and could fit a FTC/FLL Championship more than double the size of the current one. The brand new FTC Championship and FLL World Festival would also give FRC teams that also have an FTC team as part of their program a chance for the same students to participate in both championships, something that isn't really possible now.
With FTC and FLL having there own event it opens up a lot of space in the America's Center for FRC pits. Now having 150 teams in a division is no better than having a 100 teams per division, so with this new found space FRC would expand from four divisions to eight. Archimedes, Curie, Galileo, and Newton would be join by new divisions tentatively named Kamen, Flowers, Lavery, and Baker. I think it would be possible to fit all nine field in the dome with Einstein at one end, three along each sideline, and two at the other end, each in one corner of that end. It might be a little cramped but it would be an awesome sight to see.
Each of the eight division would have between 70 and 75 teams meaning there would be around 560 teams at Championship. In the short term that means that Michigan and MAR can have a few extra championship spots, couple that with the new regionals and you have around 125 extra open registration spots at Championship. I could delve more into open registration and how spots should be divided up but I'll save that for another blog post either this week or after Champs. As for scheduling, it would stay basically the same except that qualification matches would stop around 10:30 on Saturday so alliance can be done around 11:00 and Elimination matches can start at 12:00 giving an extra hour for the extra matches on Einstein.
Hopefully I've been able to illustrate my idea pretty well and I'll be back later with a post about the District system.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Palmetto Regional
This week The Hitchhikers, team 2059, competed at the Palmetto Regional. This is our first year doing two regionals and our first regional outside of North Carolina.
I didn't get to the event until Thursday afternoon because I had class and when I got there we were going out for our 2nd practice match of the day. I would have liked to have done more, but I guess we can save that for NC. We didn't get inspected til late on Thursday and our bridge arm wasn't fully finished but looking at our match schedule I felt good about Friday.
Friday started as Thursday ended, with us working on our bridge arm. We lost each of our first two matches, one of which was totally our fault. The other alliance didn't score any balls and we gave them enough points to win because we drew a technically foul when we contacted the opponents bridge. I wasn't to happy about it but the afternoon made up for it. We won our third match and then lost our fourth to go into lunch 1-3. Everything changed after lunch when we rattled off 4 wins in a row including our first double balance. We finished the day 15th even though we didn't get a single coopertition point which I was a little frustrated with because our alliance attempted in 5 of the 8 matches. Overall it was a great day, we got the bridge arm working, and a bunch of students were complaining that nothing needed to be done on the robot (not a bad thing).
Friday night we had a great scouting meeting with our scouters, who did a fantastic job throughout the event. It was just like a Krunch meeting and I felt really good with the list we were able to come up with.
Saturday we had three more matches and in each of them we were able to get coop points, the last two with us balancing. Unfortunately we went 1-2 and finished 15th. We were selected by the 2nd seeded alliance 2640, The Hotbotz from Reidsville, NC, after they picked 1319 who declined. With out 2nd pick we choose 281, EnTech Greenvillains from Greenville, SC.
Our first match we worked pretty well and were able to win 34 to 19. Throughout eliminations our hybrid was off and I think we only got 1 or 2 in during the 8 matches. Regardless we balanced in 7 of the 8 matches and that was instrumental in our winning. QF 3-2 was our first lose and the only problem we had during elims, the pwn for the bottom roller came out so we couldn't pick up for about half of the match. Also during this match 281 was dead because they switched there computer it wasn't working. The third match is when things started going crazy. The ball score was 6 to 5 and then both alliances balanced two robots which made the final score 26 to 25 for us. It was really nerve racking winning a deciding match by one point and I know I gave at least one webcast viewer another heart attack. The match wasn't even the craziest part. 281's shooter broke during the match and they were unsure if they could fix it. We had to call our timeout and when they couldn't fix it we had to call in a backup robot, 2815, Los Pollos Locos from Columbia, SC. During quarterfinals I was pretty calm but everything that happened between quarters and semis just blew that away. I definitely think all of that had an effect on SF 2-1 which we lost by 7. It also didn't help that 2815's radio was unplugged for most of the match. We rallied back to win the next two semis with identical 40 point scores. In finals we were up against that 8th seeded alliance and during the two matches 2815 came up huge. Their ability to quickly score twos while us and 2640 balanced helped to push to a seven point 48-41 win in finals 1. Finals 2 us as well as 2815 scored and then we balanced with 2640. As we were balancing the red alliance was also attempting a balance and just after we got our they flipped a robot and it was over. We started celebrating with 30 seconds left in the match and continued after the buzzer.
It was such an awesome site seeing us win a regional I can't even describe it. I was barely able to keep it together in the aftermath of the finals and winning is so awesome. For the rest of the members and well as the students I don't even want to think about it. For most of them this was there first event and it was also the first time 2059 had made eliminations so the rush for them must have been amazing.
I know this post is getting long but I just have a couple of notes as well as some thank yous left.
In addition to Regional Winner we also won the Spirit Award for our Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy theme as well our full adoption of our new primary color, orange. As they were reading the award once we figured out it was us I looked at our lead mentor and was like "seriously". I knew we were orange and spirited but it wasn't even something I thought we would be in the running for.
As for my coaching, with our 12-7 record I moved to 30-17-1 in four events with two wins and two missed elims. I guess when I coach its all or nothing and this time we got all of it.
A big thanks to 2640 for picking us. There we some many good robots in the field I was stunned when they called with the 2nd pick. Your auto was consistent and deadly and never had any problems on the bridge.
281, its too bad you guys couldn't make it all the way through but you were good while you were with us. I hope you guys get everything worked out for North Carolina in two week and congrats on the well deserved Chairman's.
2815, man were we lucky you guys were the top backup bot. Your two point scoring kept us in matches and was instrumental to our victory. I'm glad you guys get to go to St. Louis and that you became the first team to win back-to-back Palmetto regionals.
And finally to all of the students, you guys built a great robot and kept it working throughout the event was crucial.
Both of our other mentor came up to me after and thanked me for everything I've done for the team and that made me feel really amazing.
See everyone in two weeks at NC and then in St. Louis!!
I didn't get to the event until Thursday afternoon because I had class and when I got there we were going out for our 2nd practice match of the day. I would have liked to have done more, but I guess we can save that for NC. We didn't get inspected til late on Thursday and our bridge arm wasn't fully finished but looking at our match schedule I felt good about Friday.
Friday started as Thursday ended, with us working on our bridge arm. We lost each of our first two matches, one of which was totally our fault. The other alliance didn't score any balls and we gave them enough points to win because we drew a technically foul when we contacted the opponents bridge. I wasn't to happy about it but the afternoon made up for it. We won our third match and then lost our fourth to go into lunch 1-3. Everything changed after lunch when we rattled off 4 wins in a row including our first double balance. We finished the day 15th even though we didn't get a single coopertition point which I was a little frustrated with because our alliance attempted in 5 of the 8 matches. Overall it was a great day, we got the bridge arm working, and a bunch of students were complaining that nothing needed to be done on the robot (not a bad thing).
Friday night we had a great scouting meeting with our scouters, who did a fantastic job throughout the event. It was just like a Krunch meeting and I felt really good with the list we were able to come up with.
Saturday we had three more matches and in each of them we were able to get coop points, the last two with us balancing. Unfortunately we went 1-2 and finished 15th. We were selected by the 2nd seeded alliance 2640, The Hotbotz from Reidsville, NC, after they picked 1319 who declined. With out 2nd pick we choose 281, EnTech Greenvillains from Greenville, SC.
Our first match we worked pretty well and were able to win 34 to 19. Throughout eliminations our hybrid was off and I think we only got 1 or 2 in during the 8 matches. Regardless we balanced in 7 of the 8 matches and that was instrumental in our winning. QF 3-2 was our first lose and the only problem we had during elims, the pwn for the bottom roller came out so we couldn't pick up for about half of the match. Also during this match 281 was dead because they switched there computer it wasn't working. The third match is when things started going crazy. The ball score was 6 to 5 and then both alliances balanced two robots which made the final score 26 to 25 for us. It was really nerve racking winning a deciding match by one point and I know I gave at least one webcast viewer another heart attack. The match wasn't even the craziest part. 281's shooter broke during the match and they were unsure if they could fix it. We had to call our timeout and when they couldn't fix it we had to call in a backup robot, 2815, Los Pollos Locos from Columbia, SC. During quarterfinals I was pretty calm but everything that happened between quarters and semis just blew that away. I definitely think all of that had an effect on SF 2-1 which we lost by 7. It also didn't help that 2815's radio was unplugged for most of the match. We rallied back to win the next two semis with identical 40 point scores. In finals we were up against that 8th seeded alliance and during the two matches 2815 came up huge. Their ability to quickly score twos while us and 2640 balanced helped to push to a seven point 48-41 win in finals 1. Finals 2 us as well as 2815 scored and then we balanced with 2640. As we were balancing the red alliance was also attempting a balance and just after we got our they flipped a robot and it was over. We started celebrating with 30 seconds left in the match and continued after the buzzer.
It was such an awesome site seeing us win a regional I can't even describe it. I was barely able to keep it together in the aftermath of the finals and winning is so awesome. For the rest of the members and well as the students I don't even want to think about it. For most of them this was there first event and it was also the first time 2059 had made eliminations so the rush for them must have been amazing.
I know this post is getting long but I just have a couple of notes as well as some thank yous left.
In addition to Regional Winner we also won the Spirit Award for our Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy theme as well our full adoption of our new primary color, orange. As they were reading the award once we figured out it was us I looked at our lead mentor and was like "seriously". I knew we were orange and spirited but it wasn't even something I thought we would be in the running for.
As for my coaching, with our 12-7 record I moved to 30-17-1 in four events with two wins and two missed elims. I guess when I coach its all or nothing and this time we got all of it.
A big thanks to 2640 for picking us. There we some many good robots in the field I was stunned when they called with the 2nd pick. Your auto was consistent and deadly and never had any problems on the bridge.
281, its too bad you guys couldn't make it all the way through but you were good while you were with us. I hope you guys get everything worked out for North Carolina in two week and congrats on the well deserved Chairman's.
2815, man were we lucky you guys were the top backup bot. Your two point scoring kept us in matches and was instrumental to our victory. I'm glad you guys get to go to St. Louis and that you became the first team to win back-to-back Palmetto regionals.
And finally to all of the students, you guys built a great robot and kept it working throughout the event was crucial.
Both of our other mentor came up to me after and thanked me for everything I've done for the team and that made me feel really amazing.
See everyone in two weeks at NC and then in St. Louis!!
Monday, February 20, 2012
Day 45: Introducing Benjy
Even though the team is working tomorrow my blog says day 45 so now its time for everyone to meet Benjy, Team 2059's 2012 robot:
Specs:
Drivetrain:
6 wheel westcoast drive(which is a first for me as well as the team) using 6" Performance wheels as well as a custom gearbox. The white things on the front are Delrin skids(subsystem 6) which were added when we had to change from 8" wheels to 6" ones. The bearing blocks were made of ABS but they all broke over the weekend as I mentioned earlier and will have to be replaced.
Collection System:
Bottom roller is powered by a 550 in a 26:1 gearbox and the rest of the rollers are powered by a 550 in a 64:1 gearbox. Krunch students(old and new) will notice that the rollers are basically shorter versions of the rollers on Krunch 12. We did them a little differently but the overall concept is the same.
Shooter:
Two 6"diameter cardboard(yes cardboard, we got it from a McMaster shipping tube) rollers are bolted to 6" KOP wheels which are driven by 2 Fisher Price motors attached to CIMple boxes. The creative part of it is that the bottom FP drives the top roller and vice-versa. This was done to increase the speed closer to the level we had on the prototype.
Bridge Manipulator:
It is still a work in progress but you can kinda see it in the first photo. It should work once we get it all together but that may not be until we get to Palmetto.
Overall I think the team performed very well this season. We could have worked a little faster and been done a little sooner but you can only do what you can. See everyone at Palmetto and North Carolina.
Not to bad for breaking in 15 new student this year.
Drivetrain:
6 wheel westcoast drive(which is a first for me as well as the team) using 6" Performance wheels as well as a custom gearbox. The white things on the front are Delrin skids(subsystem 6) which were added when we had to change from 8" wheels to 6" ones. The bearing blocks were made of ABS but they all broke over the weekend as I mentioned earlier and will have to be replaced.
Bottom roller is powered by a 550 in a 26:1 gearbox and the rest of the rollers are powered by a 550 in a 64:1 gearbox. Krunch students(old and new) will notice that the rollers are basically shorter versions of the rollers on Krunch 12. We did them a little differently but the overall concept is the same.
Shooter:
Two 6"diameter cardboard(yes cardboard, we got it from a McMaster shipping tube) rollers are bolted to 6" KOP wheels which are driven by 2 Fisher Price motors attached to CIMple boxes. The creative part of it is that the bottom FP drives the top roller and vice-versa. This was done to increase the speed closer to the level we had on the prototype.
Bridge Manipulator:
It is still a work in progress but you can kinda see it in the first photo. It should work once we get it all together but that may not be until we get to Palmetto.
Overall I think the team performed very well this season. We could have worked a little faster and been done a little sooner but you can only do what you can. See everyone at Palmetto and North Carolina.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Day 43: BBQ and Bots
Today we worked for 12 hours and made a lot of progress. We got the final pieces of the frame finished which allow us to mount the bumpers. The wood was cut and one of out parents sewed the number on to the bumpers so the team should be able to put them together tomorrow. We also got subsystem 6 fabricated and mounted on the robot, more on that later.
The software team started working with the camera tracking on the actually shooter and had some success, but it wasn't working as well as we would like. There is a couple things they need to change in the software that should make it work better and hopefully they'll be able to do that tomorrow.
This year we're using pneumatics, which we didn't last year and I haven't since '08, but over course everyone still turns to me as an expert. After a 10 minute refresher I taught a couple of the freshman about the pneumatics and got everything mounted on the robot minus the cylinders and the solenoid. We're still missing a couple of pieces but we're going to borrow them from another local team and then order some and give the new ones back to the other team.
After dinner, which by the way was some great North Carolina BBQ, we got done to actually testing the robot. With subsystem 6 we attempted to drive over the barrier and we ran into a couple of problems. The two big ones are we can't get over the barrier and we cracked all of our ABS bearing blocks. We were planning on getting aluminum ones made and now we don't have a choice.
The team is meeting for 9 hours tomorrow but I have to study so I won't we back till Monday.
The software team started working with the camera tracking on the actually shooter and had some success, but it wasn't working as well as we would like. There is a couple things they need to change in the software that should make it work better and hopefully they'll be able to do that tomorrow.
This year we're using pneumatics, which we didn't last year and I haven't since '08, but over course everyone still turns to me as an expert. After a 10 minute refresher I taught a couple of the freshman about the pneumatics and got everything mounted on the robot minus the cylinders and the solenoid. We're still missing a couple of pieces but we're going to borrow them from another local team and then order some and give the new ones back to the other team.
After dinner, which by the way was some great North Carolina BBQ, we got done to actually testing the robot. With subsystem 6 we attempted to drive over the barrier and we ran into a couple of problems. The two big ones are we can't get over the barrier and we cracked all of our ABS bearing blocks. We were planning on getting aluminum ones made and now we don't have a choice.
The team is meeting for 9 hours tomorrow but I have to study so I won't we back till Monday.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Day 42: Driving?
I started out today with an interview at Altec. I think it went well but the best part was the tour of the facility. They had all sorts of cool machining equipment from laser cutters to cnc breaks to a huge powder coating oven it was amazing. After I got back I was pretty tired but I toughed it out and went to the meeting tonight.
The robot is basically ready to go and tonight the team mainly finished wiring and installing the bumper mounts. There isn't much else to report except that we'll be working all day the next two day to get enough practice in before we bag. I left a little early so hopefully the code got done and the robot got driving and if it didn't it will tomorrow morning.
The robot is basically ready to go and tonight the team mainly finished wiring and installing the bumper mounts. There isn't much else to report except that we'll be working all day the next two day to get enough practice in before we bag. I left a little early so hopefully the code got done and the robot got driving and if it didn't it will tomorrow morning.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Day 41: Electronics
Last night the team got the shooter mounted to the robot and decided that a feeder wasn't necessary. I won't go into details but after they explained to me I don't believe that it will work but I'm willing to let then try.
Tonight the electronics team worked on get the electronics mounted and wired on the robot. The mechanical team worked on bumper mounts as well the motor for the lazy Susan.
Unfortunately it doesn't look like the robot will be ready be Saturday so we won't be able to attend the scrimmage. I know I mentioned this earlier but it was official tonight. It kind of pisses me off because we were in this situation last year and we won't have any time to practice, but you work with what you got.
Tonight the electronics team worked on get the electronics mounted and wired on the robot. The mechanical team worked on bumper mounts as well the motor for the lazy Susan.
Unfortunately it doesn't look like the robot will be ready be Saturday so we won't be able to attend the scrimmage. I know I mentioned this earlier but it was official tonight. It kind of pisses me off because we were in this situation last year and we won't have any time to practice, but you work with what you got.
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