The 2011-2012 Season
At the beginning of the season, our number changed to 7581H (only our connections at MSU know precisely why). But our number plates had already been ordered as 1581H, so we had to scribble over the 1 with sharpie and write a 7 on it in whiteout the day before our first tournament. Our Gateway robot, "Steve", is a scissor-lift scorer with a high-power drive system that allows it to push other robots and obstacles out of its way with ease. Steve can reach a goal at any height and can score three pieces at a time.
The 2011-2012 game is called VEX Gateway. It features very different challenges than Round-Up.
During this season, we compete in four tournaments in our area: Cranbrook, Wayne State, Grandville, and MSU. Between these four tournaments, we have eleven opportunities to qualify for the World Championships: 4 ways at Cranbrook, one way at Wayne State, one way at Grandville, and 5 ways at MSU.
The 2011-2012 game is called VEX Gateway. It features very different challenges than Round-Up.
During this season, we compete in four tournaments in our area: Cranbrook, Wayne State, Grandville, and MSU. Between these four tournaments, we have eleven opportunities to qualify for the World Championships: 4 ways at Cranbrook, one way at Wayne State, one way at Grandville, and 5 ways at MSU.
Cranbrook Tournament:
Wayne State University Tournament:
Our robot had improved little since the last tournament. The only major modifications were the regearing of our drive motors to torque and the elimination of small chain in our vertical conveyor system. We also modified our strategy to score more points at once and to include and autonomous program that scores 2-3 pieces.
In one of our matches, an improperly attached goal caused our autonomous program to fail and then promptly fell over during an interaction with our robot. Keen to avoid this sort of thing happening again, we made the tournament staff go back and build it right. Little did we know, this would take half an hour and 4 engineers to accomplish.
Our alliance swiftly defeated the 7th Alliance and advanced to the semifinals.
Grandville Tounament:
Our Qualification matches ran brilliantly. We won match after match in a streak of domination.
In addition to the Champion trophy we won, we were also given another Think Award for the most effective autonomous program at the tournament. The accomplishments that we'd made were observed by VEX Officials and resulted in our qualification to the VEX Robotics World Championships in Anaheim, California.
MSU Tournament:
At this tournament, the qualification rounds went fairly well for us. We had some unlucky battery problems, but when our robot worked, we usually won. We ranked 9th out of 36 teams, and the 4th rank team, 6581S, chose us as their first alliance partner. Our other partner was DeWitt 1581A, who also played a large role in getting our alliance to the finals.
In the first round of the final, our alliance (Blue) had great runs, and we regard the above match to be one of our best in the season.
6581S and 1581A played the second match, and lost. So, it all came down to the third match. Unfortunately, 1581A's batteries died, and we dropped our doubler barrel, so we lost the match 24-20.
At this tournament, we won the Programming Skills Challenge with a score of 14. We also received a Tournament Finalist trophy for making it to the final round.
VEX Robotics World Championships:
In this match, we are one the Blue Alliance with a team from Taiwan, and our opponents were from the US and Mexico. Our ally played defense, leaving us to do most of the scoring. This strategy worked, and we won!
In this video, we are on the Red side, facing a challenge that we never encountered at the local tournaments: a purely defensive robot, known to some as a "wall-bot." To stop the expanding "wall-bot" from trapping us in our isolation zone, we scored in the strategically important goals and stayed near our starting tile. This allowed us to introduce and use our Doubler Barrel, which helped us to win the match.
More videos and pictures will be added, so check back again!