Alpha+ has great experience at Worlds
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May 14, 2013 |
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Bonners Ferry FIRST Team Alpha+ gathered
under the St. Louis Gateway Arch. |
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By Ed Katz
The BFHS Robotics had an amazing experience
attending the FIRST Robotics World Championship
held at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis,
Missouri. Everywhere we went the theme was
Science, Technology, Engineering and Math
(STEM).
It started with the plane ride from Spokane,
where we met a teacher from the University of
Idaho who was going to help judge. In Denver we
met students from Australia who, after winning
their regional competition in Hawaii, were
flying to the St. Louis championships.
With a little extra time on Wednesday, we went
to the iconic St. Louis Gateway Arch and took
the gondola ride inside. The Mississippi River
was at almost record flood stage and we were
able to walk to the river’s edge.
The building almost directly opposite the center
of the Gateway Arch is the U.S. Supreme Court
building where the Dred Scott trial took place.
A mentor from Aviation High School, a specialty
school in Seattle, drove a truck containing
eleven Pacific Northwest teams' gear to St
Louis. Several students from our team helped
unload the truck and stage gear for entry to the
Dome.
With more than four hundred teams unloading it
was quite a scene.
Once inside, our “pit crew” Daniel Ortiz, Jordan
Merz, and Andy Reed and mentors John Kaessinger
and Carrick Remaley began robot inspection.
Inspection usually takes an hour and
unfortunately we did not pass. We had an
electrical short and for almost an hour, Jordan
Merz methodically chased circuits to figure out
the problem. It turned out to be our shooting
motor winding, which meant disassembling a major
part of the robot. The pit crew arrived at 7
a.m. the next morning and had the repair done
for our one and only practice round at 9:30.
We won our first two games. With one hundred
teams in our division, “Curie,” alone, there was
plenty of time between games to take in the STEM
circus held under the dome.
Many large manufactures had booths with all
kinds of interesting displays. SPACE X had a
rocket engine and a big screen movie of their
recent soft landing. Lego had a life size Lego
character made of Legos and all kinds of robots
running around.
Then there was College Row, where universities
tried to attract perspective students. Every
college there had full ride and renewable
scholarships available to qualifying FIRST
members.
There was a football field-size room filled with
a menagerie of teams from all over the world.
The “pit,” where the robots are repaired, is
decorated with the flavor of different
countries, regions or themes. One could visit
teams from everywhere and find out how their
robotics programs and high schools run. There
were water jetted anodized perfectly finished
aluminum, carbon fiber, and C and C lathed
plywood , four wheeled, six wheeled, and tank
drive robots.
Qualification matches were randomly assigned-
three alliance partners versus three opponents.
Teams spent time between matches scouting
opponent’s robots, pits and games to develop
strategy for the upcoming match. In our third
match our alliance scored 58 points in the
pre-programmed 15 second autonomous match.
That was a higher total score than some games we
played in the last two regionals.
Our opponents put in 75. It was clear we were at
the World Championship.
Unbelievably we battled back to within two
points, but lost that match.
A team from Lancaster, California, realized
several years ago that many students were
missing their prom and decided to organize one
as a fundraiser. They rented the Hyatt Regency
ballroom and in a few hours sold fifteen hundred
tickets for the very popular RoboProm.
About half our team attended.
Our powerful fifty-foot shooter wore a groove in
the tire that accelerated the Frisbee. It was a
repair we could not do in the time allotted
between matches. We still could shoot long, but
we lost some accuracy.
In the last qualification match we were teamed
up with one of the best teams at the
competition. Their robot could pick up Frisbees
from the floor quickly and shoot short. This was
a perfect alliance partner, as they picked up
our misses and shot them in. We won our last
match. We managed to play all our matches and
keep our machine running.
We finished fortieth at the Worlds!
Many people stepped up and helped fund our trip,
making it possible for our team to proudly
represent Bonners Ferry at the World
Championship. We would like to thank them all
for this amazing and unique opportunity. Its
impact is hard to measure.
We would like to invite all our supporters and
anyone else interested to our community
demonstration this Friday, May 17, at the Middle
School cafeteria 6:30 p.m.
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