Robotics Kicks Off the New Year!

Transitioning from building their battle bots, over the break, the Jesuit robotics team began the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition season! The FIRST competition pits 6 robots on 2 different teams, or alliances, against each other, competing in a sport invented by the organization. Each alliance is comprised of three different teams from different schools. Although they could win independently of each other, the alliances are granted massive bonus points for teamwork. This year, the competition is similar to basketball. Each team must score a large 55 centimeter workout ball into either an overhead or ground goal. Teams are awarded more points for scoring in the upper goal and they get bonus points for passing.

In order to prepare, the team held their winter bootcamp, where every team member learned to work the various machines and equipment in the shop. From stripping wires to working the drill press, each team member learned the necessary skills needed to build parts and assemble the robots. For practice, each member made a box of metal out of two parts. This required working the plasma cutter, drilling holes, sanding it down, and bending the metal.

This last week, January 6th-12th, the team began meeting during school on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4 to 8:30 in order to prototype different designs. So far, the team has prototyped a pinball shooter and two catapults, all with various different editions to them. Senior Kyle Wolf, president of the robotics team, is leading the prototype and said “we’ve got a couple different designs going for a shooter, a couple catapults and a good pinball shooter type thing. I think what we’re going to end up doing is using one of the catapult prototypes because they work really well with our  strategy.” Additionally, Kyle mentioned that the team’s goal for this year is to win the regional tournament. Second year team member Will Scott commented that the prototypes “seem to be working really really well and very consistently.”

Over at the design team, vice president Jerray Dewa ’14, was working with a team of guys to build the intake system, the part of the robot designed to pick up the ball and load it into the shooter mechanism.  He mentioned that “we’re off to a good start. We’ve already built several working prototypes [whose concept] might go on the final robot.” With most of the parts already conceptualized and prototyped, the team’s off to a very good start in terms of design.

Meanwhile, the programming team, led by senior Eric Dunkerly, has begun to learn Labview, the application used to program the robot. Unfortunately, Eric is the only on with significant Labview experience, so he’s teaching six new programmers the language. Eric’s plan is to get the new members “acquainted with the language and used to Labview…and just to get them acquainted with the team’s work flow.” Additionally, Eric laid out a few goals for the team: “Our long term goals are to have a successful robot, but also for them to learn Labview in and out so that these underclassmen can lead the team next year.”

The team still has five more weeks to go before their first competition. So, things are expected to change. But overall, the team appears to be on top of things and knows exactly what to do and how to do it. With a little hard work and dedication, the team’s sure to do great this year!