November 3rd | Update Four
Week of 10/27
Half Hollow Hills
Last Sunday, we participated in the annual off-season competition, the Half Hollow Hills Invitational, hosted by Team 3624. As always, our goal with the HHH Invitational is to provide the team with key competition experience and knowledge prior to the season starting, which we believe we were incredibly successful at this year.
Unloading at HHH
Our robot at HHH
Qualifications
Scouting
As mentioned in our previous update, we wanted to start training members to scout matches as early as possible. Between our last meeting before the competition and the competition itself, we assigned the scouters “scouting tests”, in which they’d all be assigned a match and robot (the same for everyone), and they would be required to screen record their scouting on Lovat collection app and upload the video to google classroom, then fill out some additional questions regarding their respective robot regarding strategy and team cohesion to better expand their examining of robot strategy and decision making. We found this to work incredibly well, as it allowed our team to examine each scouter’s scouting individually and point out any mistakes or misconceptions they might have, and this led to our scouting data being incredibly accurate during the actual competition, along with leading to many of our new members being interested in learning more about robot design and match strategy.
While having good scouting data and Lovat is sufficient for teams, we wanted to easily visualize all our data in one place, so we spent a ton of time designing a spreadsheet where we can easily input scouting data from each match and have additional calculated statistics and metrics for each team.
Our team strategizes using data from our spreadsheet
Challenges
In between our matches, our pit crew was hard at work making sure that our robot was ready to go long before the next match. Prior to every match, we would go down a pit checklist, ensuring that every part of the robot was ready to go for when we went on the field. From replacing batteries, changing the bumpers, and even replacing the chain on our intake when it fell off after a match, we were always ready for the next.
Even with our brand-new drive team, we were still able to play incredibly well during our matches. At least, for the most part, as we had mechanical issues throughout the competition and unfortunately, our time spent actually driving during tele-op was cut short.
Drive team controlling the robot during tele-op
Robot on the field
Network Switch Issues
Throughout the entire competition, our network switch connection between our roboRIO and radio was faulty and unreliable which we believe led to issues with our robot losing and regaining connection at some points throughout a majority of our matches causing us to be partially or fully disabled.
Our robot in the pit
Software team analyzes issues
Alliance Selection
Despite the mechanical issues we had, we were able to pull through in our last qualification match and ended quals as the 12th ranked team. We ended up being the 1st pick of the 2nd alliance, and used our scouting data spreadsheet to choose a 2nd pick for. Our alliance was 810, us, 4458, and 3624’s extra robot acting as a backup when necessary.
Alliance selections
Playoffs
Unfortunately, our issues with our network switch continued into playoffs, leading us to be immobile for a majority of our time in tele-op. Additionally, in our 2nd play-off match, another robot had a high-speed collision with us, and accidentally drove on top of our swerve, destroying our 3d printed swerve cover. Despite this, we continued on, but unfortunately our network switch issues led to us being disabled once again, and we were fully eliminated.
Our broken swerve covers
Lessons Learned
While we were unable to actively compete for a majority of the competition, all members of our team were able to gain crucial experience, even if they weren’t necessarily a new member. From scouting, to pit crew, to drive team, every single person was able to gain knowledge about what it’s like to compete in these competitions.
Our team loading the robot on the field
Cake
While we were disappointed that our robot did not function for a majority of the competition, it was saved when we were presented a cake from team 9016 as part of a gift exchange between us and them! We gave team 9016 over 50 custom pins, and had an awesome time meeting some of their members.
Cake from 9016
Outreach
On October 30th, we held a stand at our school’s annual Trick or Treat Street event. This year, we had a miniature robot obstacle course, along with having a robot ring toss, allowing visitors to change the angle of intake mechanism on our Crescendo competition robot, Decibel, in intervals and then shoot our a note, with the goal of scoring it on one of three cones.
Kids are tasked with guiding a robot in an obstacle course
Thanks for reading!
Photos taken by Aditya K., Connor M., Ben M., & Nolan J.