Sunday, February 20. 2011
Team Captain Crystal here! It was a hustle and bustle all over at Penfield today! Three local news stations stopped in to check out our robot scrimmage with 10 other NY teams! We webcasted the Pits all day, but unfortunately could not show the actual competition on our homemade field with the lack of internet in the gym. 😒
We did tape the event though, so we will upload highlights of our entire day and share it on Chief Delphi!
Several teams continued to work on their robots here with the assistance of 1511 and other attending teams. We were so happy to help wherever we could! The first few practice matches were rather slow, but teams started to get adjusted to their new robots and controls. We did see some teams successfully place ubertubes in autonomous, and a few attempted auto! It was really great to have the Lead Inspector for FLR, Rob, and one of his crew, Dan, at Rally to work with the teams, especially the rookies to make sure they were all set for FLR!
We also had an exciting minibot race where climb rates ranged from 2 seconds to 6 seconds; they were launched physically at the base of the towers by team members though.
The big news is that our robot works! We struggled with the robot sitting and twiddling its sprockets on the field until we discovered that mysteriously the robots code had been overwritten with gibberish! With a refreshed copy of the program in place the robot made its move! It was able to pick up pieces and place at all levels of the rack. The potential drive team members took turns learning the controls. Most needed reminded that the programming team had written functions to do specific activities at the push of the button! The robot makes a very interesting sound as it grabs the tubes, which earned it an instant and slightly inappropriate nickname!
As the visiting teams were packing up, the team tore down the field except for a small section that was set up in the cafeteria. The robot and mechanical and electrical teams headed to the shop to add a few extra motors and speed controllers. Shayna and Team Leader Larry were reminded of the chemical properties of paint and plastic cups as Shayna did the touch up paint on the robot. And on Shayna. And on the bench. And on the floor. You should have the idea by now.
We also got a demonstration that the Robot Cart has removable handle. This will be a space and safety improvement for competition! The blue bumper cover made a brief appearance for a fitting and then went and had bold white 1511’s stenciled on by several Team Moms and Mentor Cynette. Which reminds me! A big thank you to all the team moms and dads who came out to work at the Rally! And to our great sponsor Harris and Chip Renzi for providing speakers for the morning ceremonies and for the CAKE!
And thank you to the people who helped feed our team today – Lunch by Peter, Ben, Manual and Mentor Christian’s family, afternoon snack of pizza by Mentor from afar Kim (who was near and brought College Mentor Theo with her!), and dinner by Team Captain Crystal’s mom!