THOR NC 2016 Preview

[s5511]

As we get closer to competition day, I was wondering which teams are competing in THOR this year. Has your team made any improvements to your robot during the offseason? What are your predictions?

[Monochron]

We'll be there

Currently making improvements, but training our new drivers takes a little higher priority. Hopefully we'll have more reliable ball intake by THOR though.

Is Cortechs making any improvements?

[iyportne]

Triple Strange will be there. The students have been super motivated and busy. Since playing at Worlds and learning technology that is needed at the level, they have completed vision acquisition and aiming for the high goal. They used that to complete and execute a 20 point autonomous. After tonight's meeting, they should be able to shoot from the outworks safe zone and climb faster as well. They also developed automated ball acquisition that steers and drives swerve into a ball from about 3 feet out. I believe that with a 20 point autonomous and the hang shot, they are shooting for (pun intended) taking down the tower on their own. Very little turnover this year so the drive team is still intact. Looking forward to some competitive and just plain fun play at THOR this year.

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by iyportne

Very little turnover this year so the drive team is still intact. Looking forward to some competitive and just plain fun play at THOR this year.

How do you guys usually handle drive team selection for off-season events? Is it always the drive team that you that you used in competition (if possible)? Do you keep as many drive team members from competition as you can for off-season?

[iyportne]

Originally Posted by Monochron

How do you guys usually handle drive team selection for off-season events? Is it always the drive team that you that you used in competition (if possible)? Do you keep as many drive team members from competition as you can for off-season?

For us it's not a hard and fast formula. We take a look at the turnover and pipeline and determine what skills we need to build. Since almost all of last year's team is returning, we are building and cataloging technology, allowing them to fill in the gaps and do the things they either didn't think of or had no time to do during last build and competition season. To test and develop technology, it made sense to eliminate drive team as a variable and use current drive team at THOR. This gives a richer content to the new students who are almost all freshmen and will likely be with us a longer time. If we lost all or most of the drive team like we did before last season, we chose drive team members for THOR from a variety of criteria like interest, commitment and skills measured at practice sessions and team meetings during the summer. If all things go as planned next year, we should also have a clone robot so we can then begin fielding different combinations of drive teams at THOR. It helps to have 2 or 3 functioning robots from different years to allow students to develop the interest and skills to drive, and if you have space, you can makeup challenging mini games that require programmers and drivers to develop skills. Of course when it comes purely to driving skill development, it helps to have a consistent drive train style. We have successfully deployed swerve for the last two seasons and plan to continue that trend.

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by iyportne

It helps to have 2 or 3 functioning robots from different years to allow students to develop the interest and skills to drive, and if you have space, you can makeup challenging mini games that require programmers and drivers to develop skills.

Do you guys do driving training / mini games over the summer or when school starts again? I'm curious because, with THOR so early this year, we haven't really been able to give rookies much "training" of any kind. Are you guys developing those interests and skills over the summer without new students, or do you recruit new students over the summer?

[iyportne]

Originally Posted by Monochron

Do you guys do driving training / mini games over the summer or when school starts again? I'm curious because, with THOR so early this year, we haven't really been able to give rookies much "training" of any kind. Are you guys developing those interests and skills over the summer without new students, or do you recruit new students over the summer?

Ideally during Summer. We had a late start of new recruits this year and not many of them since the roster was so full. Yes THOR is early but fortunately not much training required this year. It's one thing to have a plan...another to respond to timing that's given us. We will continue to develop and practice up to kickoff.

We will have a big turnover next year, so recruiting will have to take place early, perhaps in May. We have less constraint because we are a community team and not locked to a school for recruits or space. We don't have a problem filling the roster and we do meet regularly year round.

[Tcrump47]

Look what we are bringing back. Also we are bringing Black Ice.
Also am looking forward to play with our 2015 winning Thor Alliance and all of our 2016 Alliance Partners. Especially 1533

[ctt956]

Will there be a webcast?

[marshall]

Originally Posted by ctt956

Will there be a webcast?

Sadly there is not one planned, we just don't have the infrastructure and volunteers for it.

[DubstepLion1]

Techno Wolves will also be there. Like other teams, our focus is mainly driver training for students on our 2016 bot. For us, due to the way the school works of many members on the team, we had to limit the old "drive squad" to coaching only and let other members get a chance at driving. We let whoever was interested practice and hope to have finalized selections based upon performance soon this week.

It would also be sweet to have updated scores in TBA for THOR this year. We look forward to meeting all the teams!

[JohnFogarty]

Was registration closed this year, because I never saw a post about it.

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by JohnFogarty

Was registration closed this year, because I never saw a post about it.

It moved this year and is being hosted by a different team. Relevant info can be found here:
http://firstnorthcarolina.org/progra...petition/thor/

Apparently registration for teams outside NC started on Aug 1st, but I don't know how they disseminated that info. You could probably email THOR@firstnorthcarolina.org and see if registering is still possible. Only room for 2 teams now. I know registration increases from $300 to $350 on Sept 15th.

[Dibit1010]

587 is (there's also a list on ncfirst website!)- we are trying out new drivers, hopefully this will be seen as an improvement!


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[Crebb]

Bionic Eagles Team 5279 is excited to attend THOR for the first time. Due to time constraints we won't have our off-season modifications ready in time for THOR, but will roll them out for IROC and Rumble in the Roads.

The majority of our team, including the drive team, graduated last year, so we will be using THOR to test out potential drivers in real game situations. The students that drive the best during qualifications will be our drivers for the duration of eliminations.

THOR looks like it will be a very deep and challenging competition. There should be some exciting eliminations!