Leison

We played in our final competition, Silicon Valley Regional, last weekend. Going into SVR, one of FIRST’s most competitive regional competitions, many of us were unsure how we would rank and if we would qualify for worlds. But through our persistence and hard work, we performed much better than we expected. The SVR grind began two weeks earlier, right after we competed in the Monterey Bay Regional. Our performance was extraordinary compared to previous years and we ranked 4th at the end of the qualification matches. We only needed some minor changes to our climb before we focused on improving our cargo mechanism and decreasing cycle times. The weekend before SVR began with a rapid round of prototyping to modify the geometry of the claw. The side plates that held on the shooter wheels would hit away cargo and made it difficult to reliably intake cargo, even with a ball chasing program. As a result, we modified our side plates to include slight cutouts that increased our acquisition zone significantly. In addition, our limelight, which was mounted directly on the claw, got damaged at MBR so we refashioned a new mount that protected it from impact. .        Once the cargo fixes were done, the robot was handed off to the programmers so they could finish [...]

Last weekend, we traveled down to Port Hueneme to compete in our first regional competition. The week leading up to the competition was filled with challenges, but after finishing up our cargo arm and putting some finishing touches on our climbing mechanism, we packed up for the 5 hour drive. We still had numerous challenges to overcome in the week leading up to the competition. Due to parts being backordered, our cargo arm was coming together slower than expected. The final days before competition were filled with programming and testing of intake, limelight alignment, and shooting. At the end of the week, we had a decent autonomous routine that shot one ball into the low hub and taxied out of the tarmac. Our arm was getting tuned for low hub shooting and the drive team was able to get in some practice time. The climb was also recovering from some roadblocks. After testing our climbing mechanism, we found that the end caps of the thrifty bot elevators were shearing along the 3D printed layers. Our robot dropped like a rock in our first climb, but we redesigned and increased the strength of our endcaps, elevators, and hooks. Going into the competition, we had a solid mid climb and planned to test a high climb on the practice field. [...]