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News - '07 AZ FTC Tournament

Competitions
Posted by Kevin Forbes (admin) on Sun Jan 20, 2008 at 8:23 pm
News >> Competitions

Several weeks ago, sometime near the beginning of November, the NERDS decided to form a subteam whose mission was to create a robot for the upcoming Arizona FTC regional. Six members joined and started building right away, designing in groups to get the 'bot built faster and more efficiently.

This year's FTC game, Quad Quandary, involves multiple game elements for diversity and complexity. The 12'x12' field is divided into 4 quadrants, each of which containing several pairs of 1" tall 3" PVC rings to be scored on posts. These posts are attached to 4 hexagonal goals mounted on casters, adding yet another surprise to the game. Rings can be scored in one of 4 side goals for 1 point each, atop the platform of a goal for 2 points, rung on an 18" post for 3 points each, and, for 5 points each, they can be scored on 24" posts. Goals in the red or blue alliance quandrant at the end of the game are worth 7 bonus points at the end of the match depending on the location of the post. A 20 second autonomous mode (10 pt. bonus to winning alliance) is followed by the conventional 2 minute tele-operated mode in which the drivers have complete control of the robot.

Team 546 designed a versitile robot capable of tackling every challenge the game presented. With a 12-wheel drive using 6 motors, the 'bot could really pack a punch while being flexible and fast. The manipulator was prototyped and constructed, then fixed, changed, and refined some more until it worked flawlessly. A four-bar linkage assured a height greater than that of the 24" goal posts, and a simple goal grabber was used to acquire and shift the moveable goals from the opponents quandrants to our own.

The Arizona regional itself went very well. Besides some technical difficulties that have repeated themselves without being solved, the team managed to finish runner-ups! They also won the Innovate award, which is given to the team that not only designs the most creative and efficient designs, but has the ingenuity to bring those ideas to life.

The team plans to attend the Las Vegas regional on Feb. 23rd, 2008. With several major revisions to the drivetrain and manipulator, the team hopes to pull through this time and make it to Championships!

 

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Comments

w00t! Test comment... By Kevin Forbes on Thu Jan 31, 2008 at 7:43 pm
This is a test comment, courtesy of Kevin Forbes... we'll see if it works!
RE: FTC arizona competition By Kevin Forbes on Thu Feb 07, 2008 at 3:13 pm
This is a secondary test comment. Will it work? Nobody knows...

PS. that competition was lame...

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