The Green Machine is proud to introduce our 2009 competition robot: Zeus! Standing almost five feet tall and weighing over 110 pounds, the robot is fully capable of performing every task in FIRST Lunacy. Zeus’s chassis utilizes six drive “rover” wheels arrayed in a tank drive configuration, in addition to two tiny omni wheels, which relay velocity data to the robot’s onboard computer. With the help of this information, the robot has a programmed traction control system similar to how anti-lock brakes work in cars.
In order to more effectively collect moon rocks, Zeus’s chassis is oriented so that it is wider than it is long. This allows a sizeable opening in the front of the robot for moon rocks to be captured by a powered front roller. This front roller then transports the balls diagonally up to a vertical shaft in the rear of the robot, where the balls are then carried by another roller-conveyer system up to the shooter in the top of the robot. Combined, the ball intake and the vertical column can store up to seven game pieces. To score the balls, Zeus initially had a shooter which consisted of two sets of eight inch diameter wheels attached directly to powerful CIM motors. However, after the Wisconsin Regional, the team found that a dumper was more effective at scoring. The team detached the shooter at the end of the Wisconsin Regional and CADed and build a dumper module to attach to the robot at the Minnesota Regional, giving Zeus its current form. In a technical progression from previous years, all components of Zeus are controlled by motors rather than pneumatic pistons.
Game
The goal of the game is to score as many of the game pieces in the opposing side’s trailers as possible. 
Robots start out in front of the opposite alliances’ human players. There is a 15-second autonomous period, during which robots operate according to programs that teams download to their robot, and a 2-minute Teleoperated period, where robots are driven and controlled by a human drive subteam at one end of the field. Empty cells (also worth 2 points) must be handed to a robot by the “payload specialist” at the mid-field position known as the “outpost”. The robot must deliver the Empty Cell to their human player on one of the corners in order to get a Super Cell that is worth 15 points. A robot can only carry one Empty Cell at a time. Super Cells can only be put into play during the last 20 seconds of play, and only if the human player has been delivered an Empty Cell