The 2012 season has officially begun! On the 7th of January, 91 Minnesota FIRST Robotics teams gathered at the University of Minnesota for the Kickoff of the 2012 season. The challenge for this season is called “Rebound Rumble.” For this game, a robot has to be able to shoot foam basketballs into hoops that are placed 28”, 61”, and 98” off the floor AND be able to drive over a 4”-squared-off steel bump in the center of the field or navigate over one of three teeter-totter bridges to get to the other end of the field. For the endgame, the robot has to balance on a bridge, possibly with one or up to two other robots!
With a foam basketball in one hand and box of ideas in the other, The Green Machine thus embarked on a six-week odyssey into brainstorm, design, CAD, build and program a robot, affectionately named “Zephyr.” All team members showed up to the post kickoff brainstorming sessions that were held at Calvary Lutheran Church, our home-base-away-from-home. Ideas flew and theories were discussed both Saturday and Sunday until we had a conceptually clear idea of where we would be heading during the season. In order to formulate this map of our season we broke up into smaller groups to examine every detail of the novel game. By allowing everyone to express their own ideas in a smaller scale, more personal group, we were able to draw the most innovative and adapted strategies from our entire team. No idea was too crazy, at least to start. After our small group discussions, we met as a team to assimilate our individual solutions and debate the course of action that our team should take. In tandem with this process, we had a core group of readers who read the entire game manual and were able to provide rule information and suggestions in order to assure we were staying within the rules.
One of the newest aspects of this year’s game is using an Xbox Kinect to control the robot during the new ‘hybrid drive’ period (previously known as the autonomous period). In the Kit of Parts, teams also received a gyroscope (the better to balance with on the bridge?) and an accelerometer in order to be prepared for the endgame.
On January 21, Team 1816 welcomes the community to visit us in our workshops at Edina High School and Valley View Middle and view our progress on this year’s robot. We will have our robot-to-date on display, as well as tours of our workspaces. For another glimpse at this year’s competition, click on FIRST videos for animations, then plan to see The Green Machine in live-action at the Lake Superior Regional, March 8 – 10, 2012, in Duluth and the North Star Regional, at Mariucci Arena, University of Minnesota.