Monthly Archives: March 2024

Last weekend, our team competed in the Central Valley Regional. The Wednesday before competition, team 2473, Goldstrikers, used our practice field for testing auto routines and driver practice. We hope that the time they had on our practice field helped strengthen their robot. In the future, we hope to accept more requests from teams who wish to use our practice field.  By Thursday, the Pit was packed in the trailer and our competition team headed to Fresno. During the competition practice day, we encountered an issue with the CANivore and RoboRio. The CANivore failed to communicate with the RoboRio, so the Hardware and Software pit crew ran many tests in hopes of fixing the issue. After swapping out the CANivore did not work, we attempted to swap out the RoboRio instead. Upon noticing that neither change yielded desired results, we replaced the CANivore and RoboRio, restoring communication between the two. We hope to conduct more testing of the two hardware pieces on our test beds. Additionally, during our first practice match, we realized that shooting from a distance no longer worked. This was an unresolved issue that we plan to look into more.  On Saturday, our pit crew got to work, re-tensioning the chains, checking the wires, and replacing the battery. We focused on software, as the issue [...]

One week out from the Central Valley Regional in Fresno and our team is hard at work putting the finishing touches and final improvements on our robot. After experiencing issues with our bumpers due to heavy impacts, we redesigned our bumpers and billet piece to be much more durable. We also completed production of spares for our shooter, intake, and arm so we can easily swap out parts if needed at competitions. In addition, we fine-tuned our auto paths making a clear selection of working paths, most notably our 5-piece auto, which was a tremendous success this past week. The strategy team looked over matches of high-ranking teams that we will be competing with at CVR and studied their auto paths to improve our own. In addition to efficient autos, the auto team is also making complementary auto paths with other teams (1-3 piece auto), which could be helpful in getting the right alliance members for alliance selection. Significant contributions have also been made to vision. In addition to new camera mounting positions and redesigned camera mounts themselves, we have been working on speaker and amp alignment to increase cycle times.  Having efficient cycle times is important for our success, so our drive team has been practicing hard. They have also been working on avoiding and playing defense, [...]

By attending Silicon Valley Regional last week, our team was given the opportunity to observe and learn from other teams early in the season. After a busy week at competition, our team had a thoughtful debrief to focus on what went well during SVR, as well as how we could improve our robot. In preparation for Central Valley Regional, the strategy team will be deciding the next goals to focus on for robot actions, hardware, and software, keeping in mind our functional requirements. Over the next two weeks, these respective subteams will implement these tasks in order to maximize the abilities of our robot for competition. This week, our machining team has manufactured new spare parts for Vivace. On top of machining, the rest of the mechanical subteam has been hard at work assembling the modular spare parts for Vivace. These subsystems include the intake, shooter, and rotating arm. For the intake, we are working on redesigning the plates, as well as updating the billet piece for durability. Additionally, we also plan on redesigning the bumpers to increase robustness for the intake and mounting the assembled spares onto our off season swerve, Phil. During SVR, we learned that our bumpers were shifting upon impact, caving into the billet piece causing the piece to take damage. In order to [...]

Our team participated at the Silicon Valley Regional, March 1-3, 2024. We had about 45 students on the team attend the event which was held at the Santa Clara Fairgrounds. The team had a slow start working through various issues before the lunch break on Saturday. During the afternoon session, the team's robot began to perform well on the field scoring notes reliably in the Amp, Speaker and getting on Stage during the end game; our human player was also able to score some high notes during our matches. The team ended the qualifications round in rank 16th. During the playoff alliance selection, we were the first pick for alliance captain 5, The Wildhats - team 100, the second alliance member selected was Eagleforce - team 2073. The alliance of team 100, 972, and 2073 worked their way through the playoffs to reach an equal 3rd place out of a field of 42 teams. The team was also awarded the Industrial Design Award sponsored by General Motors. This award celebrates the team that demonstrates industrial design principles, striking a balance between form, function, and aesthetics. The judges highlighted the following when presenting the award - In the realm of robotics, where innovation meets functionality, one team has set the bar high with their exceptional approach to design. Embracing [...]