The robot quickly plucks up the freight piece and pushes it to the warehouse, scoring for the team. As the time winds down, the robot continues these motions, efficiently scoring even more points. As the timer buzzed, the results are tallied, and the robot has secured a victory for the thrilled team.
The FTC (First Tech Challenge) Robotics team recently started their challenge on September 18, 2021. The new challenge, Freight Frenzy, includes many diverse and intriguing parts.
There are three periods in a robotics match: autonomous, driver-controlled, and endgame.
Autonomous
Navigating the robot and parking it completely in the alliance storage unit or the warehouse earns several points.
Using the carousel to get the duck and delivering it to the field also gets points.
Finally, the autonomous bonus, where identifying a barcode and placing the object associated with it on the Alliance Shipping Hub can earn points.
Driver Controlled
Moving the freight to the warehouse delivers most of the points in this period.
Similarly, balancing the Alliance Shipping Hub or the Shared Shiping Hub being unbalanced towards your side gains your team points.
Finally, points are earned through moving the freight out of the warehouse correctly.
Endgame
In the Endgame, spinning the duck for the carousel, and moving the duck or team element to the correct position is worth points.
In addition, capping the Team Shipping Element on the pole of the Shipping Hub or parking the robot in the warehouse correctly earns points for the team.
Jesuit Building
Overall, the Jesuit team has been focusing on the key elements of the robot, such as the intake and the part interacting with the carousel, and this has allowed us to create a robot that can perform all the activities well. By working together as a team and with the help of the moderator, Mr. Couvillon, the team has prospered, having fun and building an excellent robot at the same time.
Student Opinions
When asked about the team, interacting with teammates, and overall progress, Daniel Mansur ’24 stated that “I feel like we’ve made astounding progress, especially when such is compared to my experience in the last two years. We’ve gotten much quicker and more efficient, delve more into problems, and find clear solutions. Overall, it’s looking to be a great season. This year has already been a lot of fun, and I feel as if my skills are already being made more profound. The team works well together and is able to focus on the tasks at hand.”
Similarly, Sai Gujjarlapdui’23 noted:
“This season has been much more streamlined than the past several years. We have several competent designers, a lot of ideas, and much more efficient than in previous years, although it still isn’t very efficient. We’ve spent 2 years building skills to put to use this year. Some of us have can now 3D model robots, some of us can code cameras to make decisions, and others have refined their skill in building to be faster than ever. The team is likely at the best it’s ever been because we finally have a large skill set and several members with experience, most of whom usually move up to FRC tournaments after freshman year, but have decided to stay in the goal of making the FTC team better than its ever been before. With Mr. Couvillon’s guidance and several of us having 2 years of experience, I’d still say we don’t have much of a chance to win, just given the sheer amount of teams that compete in the competition. As a team, we’ve progressively gotten better at working together, simply because we’re much more familiar with each other, and we’ll keep getting better. We often play SSBU when on weekends during some of our meetings whenever we have time, and we’re a great team together.”
Finally, Lorenzo Hildago’23 said that “The robot is coming along nicely. We have new team members this year, mostly freshmen, that contribute a lot to the team. We are doing much better right now than at this point in last year’s season.
My Experience
Working with my teammates has enabled me to learn more about them as people, widened my range of ability, and given me new experiences on the team. Being around the new freshmen on the team had certainly been…quite the “experience.” Their sense of humor differs from mine in many ways. They have a “special” kind of Zoomer Humor. Even so, they are learning and improving fast. They can do CAD (computer-aided design), build parts, etc. They will certainly contribute to the team’s (hopeful) success at our competitions.”
Overall, the team has been working well towards participating in the upcoming tournaments in December and the beginning of next year. I believe the team will go on to accomplish many great things in these next few months.
For more info about the periods of the game and its specific, the rev robotics site provides great information about this topic: https://docs.revrobotics.com/kickoff-concepts/freight-frenzy-2021-2022/game-strategy
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