1310 - Runnymede Ravens

[Mr. Lim]

Hello CD Community!

Team 1310 here, your friendly neighbours from the unseasonably un-cold North here in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

We're not really well known south of the border, nor are we all that famous north of the border, for that matter. However, as a new teacher/member of the team, I must say we've got a really great team of students, teachers and mentors!

Although I doubt we'll grab as much attention as the powerhouses of the North like 1114, 2056, and 188, 610, 1241, etc, every team has its story to tell, including the "underdogs"...

To help share our story, we've created a YouTube channel where we'll be posting up videos in the week leading up to our first competition at the University of Waterloo.

The link is here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/1310Robotics

Right now we have two videos showing just how valuable practice can be for this game, as well as some early testing of our drivebase ground clearance vs the bump, and our first crack at side-stepping while locked on to the target.

Enjoy!

[,4lex S.]

Underdogs eh?

I think you just scored 4 balls in less than 30 seconds. Sure, defence might have a bit of an effect on that, but your manoeuvrability and driver skill is going to help a lot. If I were a long range/mid fielder at GTR or Waterloo, I would be watching to either pick you, or be picked by you for sure.

Good luck at both regionals.

[Jonathan Norris]

Looks great Shawn,

Now just have your drivers work on picking balls off the wall, turning 180 degrees, and driving with the ball to a goal on the other side of the field. It takes a lot of practice to turn your driver into a good front zone scorer. Good luck in Waterloo, I'll see you guys there and at GTR.

[Mr. Lim]

Thanks for the positive feedback guys! We're excited about the season, and can't wait to take the field!

Interestingly enough, all the movies on our channel are of our practice robot... there's video of our REAL robot floating around the team, but only time will tell when those are uploaded to YouTube.

In the meantime, a new video has been posted:

Runnymede Robotics practice drill II shows the exact practice drill that Jonathan Norris mentioned in his post above =). Go figure, eh?

Hope you enjoy!

[Vince lau]

I think i saw your team on YTV today

[Mr. Lim]

Yes that would've been us!

YTV filmed a segment at our school and in our shop on ship day!

I wasn't involved personally because that was the same day as the University of Waterloo's CCC programming competition, and I had a few students competing while YTV was there.

I hope it turned out well, because YTV was nice enough to send out a pretty large crew for the segment! It was really cool to see...

[Vince lau]

nice, the robots looked different so I wasn't really sure

[Mr. Lim]

Yeah, the YTV segment was filmed exclusively with our real robot, which has a few more "features" over our prototype/practice robot =).

So I guess the cat is out of the bag then Vince? YTV watchers have seen our competition robot...

[Jonathan Norris]

Shawn, just to let you just know we found the competition soccer balls alot 'sticker' then normal soccer balls. This basically caused or roller system to not roll the ball unless we are going backwards. They performed very differently then the balls we were practicing with. Just a heads up for your drive team.

[Mr. Lim]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Norris

Shawn, just to let you just know we found the competition soccer balls alot 'sticker' then normal soccer balls. This basically caused or roller system to not roll the ball unless we are going backwards. They performed very differently then the balls we were practicing with. Just a heads up for your drive team.

Thanks for the heads-up JNo. I've heard some others mention this as well. I was over at 188's before they left for FLR, as they had an official ball that they subsequently borrowed from 1114. The surface was a lot different than most of the soccer balls we practiced with. We have one soccer ball which had a similar surface which seems to work well with our roller, but there's no replacement for the real deal. I've got my fingers crossed though!

[jblay]

I have to say that drill is super awesome.