Today was the first day of the competition, however, we are not actually competing today, just fixing the robot and playing practice rounds. We were unable to attend our first practice competition because the robot was not ready. Our second practice round was very interesting — the arms fell down and wouldn’t go back up. A malicious robot then ran them over, resulting in their destruction. The third match was by far the scariest. The robot started hybrid period by spinning uncontrollably in circles. It then proceeded to get another robot stuck, followed by the flag pole falling down, the flag falling out and the lap indicator vanishing. Right now, we are making repairs, in addition to fixing the few things that the safety inspectors have asked us to modify. At this point, it’s looking like we will not be using any form of arms to “herd” the ball, however, we are reasonably certain that we will be able to knock balls off of the overpass. In a second-to-worst case scenario, we could just run around the track quickly, and do nothing else. In a worst case scenario, our robot may do nothing at all, however, this is highly unlikely.
Some of the robots here from other teams are amazing! There are some very creative designs, including a variety of lifting and catching devices, a small robot that does nothing but go in circles around the track at high speed, and one robot that manages to launch balls over the overpass. One particularly tall forklift-style robot tipped over when it made a (successful) last-ditch effort to get the trackball back onto the overpass.
Hopefully we’ll have a better functioning robot tomorrow…
