2009
The 2009 challenge, "Lunacy," involved familiar ball play as well as introducing helpful camera tracking and a one sixth gravity simulation by using a 'regolith' field surface of fiberglass reinforced panels. The target for the balls this particular year was a trailer towed by the other alliance which made for an interesting game of chasing. Our experience and success with ball manipulation in 2006 with the Aim High game drove our decision to build a design similar to our 2006 robot. We determined that the robot would include a two wheeled shooter with camera tracking and a harvesting mechanism that fed into the shooter. We realized that despite the slippery regolith field it would be extremely advantageous to have a fast maneuvering robot, since a stationary or slow robot's trailer could easily be scored on by opponents. To solve this we had a traction control system that had 'follower wheels' that recorded the speed of the robot and kept it from slipping. At the unveiling event hosted by BAE Systems we were not the only team with a partially functioning robot and little time left, but in the four remaining days of build-season we managed to attain our goals of agility and scoring capability.
The robot's performance at the Granite State Regional was commendable. Excelling as a scoring robot, we were seeded 10th in qualifiers and allied with Kaizen Blitz (1276) and The Red Devils (87) but our alliance fell in the quarter finals. Although we did not place in the robot competition, we were honored to win the Website Award and Chairman's Award, which qualified us for Championships in Atlanta, Georgia.
Before Atlanta we fine tuned the shooter, and worked frantically at the beginning of the competition to make the shooter we shipped the same as the one we had tuned at home. This improved our performance at Championships and produced early success in the competition, and after the qualifying rounds we were seeded 11th. We were not picked for the eliminations rounds which was somewhat disappointing end to the tournament but we were pleased with how well we had done.
In 2009 our team attended several off-season tournaments, in which most of the students got a chance to be on the drive team. The first competition we attended was BattleCry at WPI, where we made it to quarter finals. Early in the day at Mayhem in Merrimack, a small group of new drivers brought us to 4th place. Once other students returned from SAT testing our usual drive team took over. The robot behaved mechanically, but we were not able to get the camera tracking to work. We lost in the loser's bracket. Bash at the Beach was our first tournament of the fall, and a small but eager crew made the trip down to Connecticut. New students took on some of the drive team roles. As the last off-season tournament of the year, River Rage provided one more opportunity for new students to try driving. Because other robots had higher scoring capabilities, we took an defensive stance, and qualified as top seed. Allied with Gael Force, we won the tournament.
