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Yesterday was a very exciting day for us!
We competed (again) at the qualifying matches and in the programming skills, and had some very interesting results.
I’ll start with the qualification matches. We had mixed results today, with some inconsistent scouting info, and and lost some of the matches. This means we finished with a 5-5 record, which isn’t the best. We had hoped for better, but considering this is our first year at this I think getting 50% at the world level is pretty good. We didn’t get picked for an alliance at the end of the qualifiers, meaning we were not able to compete in the final elimination rounds for our division.
However, during the eliminations rounds they hand out the division awards, and we got won. That’s right, we got another,
Judges award. (for using technology to overcome the distance between our members)
We were however, first place in the Robot programming skill with a record of 28,28,0,0. The next best team had 28,14,something,something. During the finals elimination rounds on the main stage, the top two from each skills event go head to head. For us to win, either they had to get less than 28, or we had to match or beat 28. Both of the robots autonomous skills programs failed, our because one of the motors imploded. This means we are the:
VEX ROBOT AUTONOMOUS SKILLS WORLD CHAMPIONS
and we have a banner and a really tall trophy to prove it.
That’s all for this season readers, see you next year for
Sack attack
(I still can’t stop laughing…)
Day two out of the three day competition was very eventful for us. We did our last skills runs, and most of our qualifying matches. We also ran out of scouting sheets, and had to get new ones printed.
We are second in autonomous skills right now, with 28 points under the new rules. We can score 31, and would have in our third run, but since we had worn out our old motors and had to switch motors for the code and it hadn’t been adjusted, we got 0. This means our three autonomous skills runs are 0,28,0.
Our qualifying matches also had some rough spots. We ended the day with a 5-3 record in 34th place. Considering this is our first year, I think that is pretty good, even though we know we could have done better.
They also announced the new game for next year. It is…
SACK ATTACK
Feel free to completely recover from the fit of laughing you just had before continuing to read.
Bad names aside, it is looking to be a good game though, I haven’ looked at all the rules yet, but they seem to be great.
and we are lucky enough to be there.
This being my first world level competition, it is very cool seeing all the places the different teams are from. It’s like the entire robot obsessed loving portion of the world has been crammed into the Anaheim convention center!
Our team was there yesterday, setting up and making amazing displays out of the buttons we are handing out (that is until the table needed to be used as a table).
Today we had our first three qualification matches, and did our first two autonomous skills attempts. We won 2/3 of the qualification matches, losing one because our motors committed suicide after being overworked. It the Autonomous skill, we scored 28 points using the new more difficult rules, putting us in the top spot. (last time I looked anyways, which was like 5 hours ago). We have been having a great time, handing out and getting “swag” from the other teams. It is very cool to see where they are all from. (I learned that NewZeland is the 2nd best country in the world, the 1st being Canada of course).
Over all the highlight of the days would have to be…. me learning that I have at least one person who at least sometin=mes reads this blog. That’s right; YOU EXIST!!!
That’s all for now, I will try to blog again next evening. Chris has been keeping the twitter updated, and you can see the results in almost real time here
that’s all for today, I will not see you soon! (you know, cause it’s a blog…. and I don’t see any of my viewers)
Well, the day of departure is almost here, the smell of burnt keys fills the air as programs are being finished down to the detail, our autonomous skills code is now finished (Huzzah!), and Jacob is now working on finalizing the code to the letter.
John, our mentor/teacher/coach is working on a box that will allow us to safely ship the robot, and it’s reusable! Amazing!
The robot (for once) is completely finished… Here’s a direct quotation:
Sam: “So, are we absolutely sure the robot is completely finished, nothing to be added?”
Jacob: “I hope so!”
Righty then! Nothing reassures you like a good ol’ “I hope so!”
Moving on, seeing as we’ve submitted our team to be considered for Design and Excellence Awards, we needed to come up with a presentation for the judges when we get called for the required interview. In an effort to look professional, we are working on memorizing it to the smallest detail. (8 minutes is too long guys! Speed it up!)
This just in: We’ve scored a number over 30 and less than 100 in a test run of our autonomous skills tests!
Back to the relevent news.
This competition is SO BIG that all 398 teams have to be put into 4 different divisions! That’s 2 times more than our LAST competition!
I have no clue which division we’re in, but as soon as we know, I’ll let you know. Or Henry will. Or Chris. Just check the blog or twitter feed for which division we’re in.
Also, on the website I will provide later on, there’s going to be a live feed of all four divisions, and a live feed of ALL the rankings! So once we know what division we’re in, once again, we’ll let you know.
The link to the tournament information page is HERE
Enjoy the weather, wherever you are (It’s really windy right now, and the forecasted rain didn’t show up… What a disappointment!)
- Sam the Editor
In case you didn’t read the title, Jack loves Vinyl. In fact, he spent the whole day cutting vinyl for various vex related things. Mostly our tri-board, which we will use to show our robot design to people more effectively.
On a slightly less important note, “final” touches were made to the robot, but ‘m sure we will make more later. These final touches consisted of finishing out robots fingers (they help us grip game objects) and also the gearing and motor allocation to speed up our lifts.
We (and by We I mean Jacob) have been having some trouble with the code, but it is a pre-competition ritual by now so I’m sure it will be fine…
That’s all for now, see write to you later mortals!
Sorry about the lack of a post last Tuesday (if you were expecting one…), we were working very hard on getting absolutely EVERYTHING ready for the VEX WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS!! *sans sound effects*
So, due to that aforementioned fact, today will be a double dose of blogging awesomeness!!! Yay!
Tuesday:
So, as far as I can remember, Tuesday was a day of robot design completion (for now[?]), the robot is now fully functional once again with some major improvements such as a much speedier drive train and some new sensors (yaw and others). The guys are a little closed mouthed on it right now because they’re in the thick of it right now programming and adjusting existing parts of the robot to better our performance during the upcoming competition. The documentation team also worked towards completing a document which details on the history of our robot for the now amazingly dictionary sized documentation book. I, Sam the Editor, worked on a top-secret project that will not be mentioned in further detail until a later date.
Now… Moving on…
Today:
Today was all about prepping for the competition which is now just over a week away! Hurrah! The robot is now being programmed to utilize the components that have been added to the robot, and a possible new addition is being designed as a concept that could possibly further aid our accuracy when scoring in a goal. More and more documentation is being added to our now encyclopedia sized documentation book, and I continue to work on the aforementioned secret project.
So… That’s all for now…
Have a great Easter weekend everyone!
~Sam the Editor
