[FTC]: Washington FTC Event Webcast

[ttldomination]

After watching a few of the videos and look at pictures from other competitions, it would seem to be that most teams are going for the claw route rather than some sort of suction mechanism...are the rings really that hard to intake?

[Madison]

Originally Posted by emmell

So are they running it as a scrimmage, because there are some matches being played (or so it appears).

I love 157's "behind the back" dunker mechanism.

The event continued as a scrimmage and that gave everyone valuable time to iron out any continuing issues with getting their robots to play nicely with the FMS.

Originally Posted by ttldomination

After watching a few of the videos and look at pictures from other competitions, it would seem to be that most teams are going for the claw route rather than some sort of suction mechanism...are the rings really that hard to intake?

There were a handful of teams that had something equivalent to a roller claw on their machines. Unfortunately, I was too busy worrying about getting our own robots working and tuned to pay much attention to how effective other teams were. One of our machines is a simple four-bar linkage lifting system with an actuated bucket on the end and it did very well in practice.

[JamesByrne]

Ya we chose to do videos and a live stream because of bandwidth. We also thought that videos would be more use full because then people could watch them on demand.

Let me know if there is any feedback on the site design.

[Rick TYler]

For what it's worth...

Despite struggling with a variety of software demons, the volunteers (and JoAnn) running this event were terrific. I would not have been nearly so gracious and calm under the same circumstances. Major kudos to the event crew.

Nerdetails about our robots:

FTC 417 -- "A Secret" used a color sensor to put their alliance pucks into a scoring bin, and the other alliance's pucks into a special bin designed to be dumped under their opponent's ramp. Cool technology.

FTC 418 -- "Wocka Wocka" the first walking FTC 'bot I've seen in competition. It didn't score many points, but it was a crowd favorite.

FTC 575 -- "Vicuna" turned over coming off the ramp twice, something it has never done in practice. Discovered at the end of the day that someone on the team had built a better battery tray closer to the middle of the robot. That much weight shift turned it into an Olympic tumbler. I'm guessing they fix that for the "re-do" in February!

[ttldomination]

417 has a nice design, but a tad bit...tedious. On the other hand, they were one of the few teams which could actually pick up the pucks from the ground.

[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by ttldomination

417 has a nice design, but a tad bit...tedious. On the other hand, they were one of the few teams which could actually pick up the pucks from the ground.

417 is mostly made up of former FLL "Gothic Lawn Gnomes" students. The Gnomes are a perennial force in FLL. This was their first FTC tournament and I think they are just starting to really "get" the virtues of speed, simplicity and toughness. I wish you could see their 'bot up close -- it's really a cool bit of engineering in a lot of ways. They certainly know how to make use of all those Lego bits and pieces, and I love their puck-slamming lifter device. At the tournament they were also having some drive-train issues, since they had to turn their 6-wheel-drive design into 4WD at the last minute. At the re-do they will have their 6WD system back up.

I also loved the robot built by Madison's kids at FRC 488 (I cannot remember their FTC number -- it's one of those 4-digit ones). It was simple and effective, the trademark of an experienced team. Also, Madison has a dark gift for chassis design and I saw her fingerprints all over it, even if she never touched the robot.

TTL, you probably didn't see it on the video feed, but 575 climbed the ramp on the "B" field. It was reportedly the only ramp-climb of the day.

February will be fun.

[ttldomination]

Yes, that would explain the Lego claw. If you leave me with LEGOs, I probably can't do anything. I'm guessing this is great way to help FLL teams making the transition as well. .

Ramp climbs. Yes. That's interesting.

[Madison]

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

I also loved the robot built by Madison's kids at FRC 488 (I cannot remember their FTC number -- it's one of those 4-digit ones). It was simple and effective, the trademark of an experienced team. Also, Madison has a dark gift for chassis design and I saw her fingerprints all over it, even if she never touched the robot.

The robot with the four-bar linkage is FTC3231. Our other team, FTC2939, ran afoul of Newton's laws.