254A receives Excellence at Bakersfield VEX Tournament

On Saturday, December 14th, VEX Teams 254A and 254F competed at the Frontier Titan Robotics Tournament in Bakersfield, California.

Our teams had some tough matches in the qualifying rounds, and even had to go against each other. Despite that, 254A went undefeated and seeded 3rd, while 254F seeded 13th.

254F was picked by the 2nd seeded team, 563, Titan Robotics. This alliance later picked Team 1437X, Patriot Robotics.

254A picked 1437Z and then 1437Y, Patriot Robotics.

After easily getting through the quarterfinals, 254A had to face 254F in the semifinals. 254A ended up narrowly advancing to face the number 1 seeded alliance featuring teams 21D, 21, and 1837A. In the finals, robot problems plagued 254A’s alliance in the first round. Then, in the second round a field disconnect occurred that resulted in 254A, 1437Y, and 21 being disconnected and only 21D left to play the match by themselves.

During the awards ceremony, Team 254A was given the Excellence Award for their outstanding performance in Qualification Rounds, Robot Skills, Programming Skills, and presenting their Design Process. This means that either 254A or 254B (who received Excellence at the Bellarmine VEX Tournament) are eligible to receive the Excellence award at the State Championships in March.

Modesto VEX Tournament

On Dec 7th, five of Bellarmine’s VEX robotics teams competed at the Central Valley VEX Robotics Tournament.  Although our teams had a few tough matches, often competing against each other, four of the five teams made it to eliminations.  254G placed third in the ranking, and 254D placed 15th.  254G joined 21D and 254E to form the 2nd alliance and 254D joined 2367 and 2367B to form the 7th alliance.  Both faced each other in the quarterfinals, and 254G and 254E advanced to the semifinals.

In the Semifinals, 254G and 254E faced 8000A, 8000B, and 8000C.  They managed to win the first game 37-36.  Because of some connection issues they were defeated in the second match, and were unfortunately eliminated in the third match.

In the skills challenges, 254E scored 15 points in Programming skills and 57 points in Robot Skills.  254C got 10 points in Programming Skills 254D scored 56 points in Robot Skills.  

Bellarmine VEX Tournament

On November 22nd and 23rd, all seven of Bellarmine’s teams competed at the Bellarmine Bay Area VEX Robotics tournament. Our teams played well during qualification and four of our teams made it to eliminations. 254A, as part of the 8th ranked alliance, faced the 1st ranked alliance in the quarterfinals and unfortunately lost. However, 254F, 254G, and 254E, as the 4th ranked alliance, decisively beat the 5th alliance in the quarterfinals and simultaneously scored 76 points, the most points in any of the matches of the event. The all-254 alliance then faced the top-seeded alliance in the semifinals, and lost the first match by only 3 points.

In the second and third matches of the semifinals, however, the all-Bellarmine alliance staged a comeback to win the next two matches against the 1st-ranked alliance, securing the semifinals and a place in the final round of eliminations. The all-254 alliance subsequently plowed through the finals, winning both matches against the 2nd-ranked alliance by margins of about 40 points each. This decisive tournament win added 254E and 254G to the list of Bellarmine teams headed to the California State Championships.

Additionally, our Bellarmine teams accounted for the top three Programming Skills scores and three of the top four Robot Skills scores. Notably, Team 254A placed first in both Skills Challenges. More importantly, 254B won the Excellence Award, the highest award given in VEX competition. The award recognizes teams for their overall excellence in their engineering process and robot design, for their performance in Skills Challenges and matches, and for outreach, teamwork, and sportsmanship. With this significant achievement 254B will also head to the California State Championship. In short, after just two tournaments, five Team 254 teams have qualified for the State Championship, of which two (A and F) have qualified through multiple tournament successes.

254B is led by Eric Van Lare and Jeffrey Kaufmann

254E is led by Louis Lin and Dorian Chan

254F is led by Nick Verducci and Nathan Rooke

254G is led by Eric Wang and Goutham Gnanasekeran

Congratulations to our teams, and we wish them luck at the State Championship in March!

VEX Tournament Information for Competitors

The event is free for spectators. Below is information about the tournament, including details on the qualifications for the state and US national tournaments.

Outline

• Changes from last year
• Schedule
• Tournament Location
• Concessions & Pizza Order Form
• Awards Given
• Information for Competitors
• Information for Novices

Changes from Last Year

• There are more teams competing, so if you can, please get inspected on Friday evening.
• We have extended the hours for the skills challenge field. It will open at 7:30 on Saturday morning and stay open through 4:30pm. High skills challenge scores can lead to a berth at the California State Championship.
• Qualifications have changed and are described in the “Awards Given” section below.

Schedule

Friday, November 22, 2013

6 pm – 8 pm

Check-In and Inspection (in Liccardo)

6 pm – 9 pm

Practice time for teams

Saturday, November 23, 2013

7:15 am

Pit Area and Registration Opens (in Liccardo)

7:15 am – 8:30 am

Inspection (in Liccardo)

7:30 am – 8:30 am 7:30 am – 4:30 pm 8:15 am

Practice Rounds (in Sobrato Theater) Skills Challenge Field open (2nd floor Sobrato Theater) Check-in closes (Teams scratched that haven’t checked in)

8:30 am – 8:45 am

Driver’s Meeting (in Sobrato Theater)

8:30 am – 9:30 am

Sign up for judging interview (at Pit Admin table)

8:45 am

Welcome (in Sobrato Theater)

9:00 am – 12:30pm

Qualifying Rounds (in Sobrato Theater)

12:30 pm – 1:00 pm

Lunch Break (We will have Pizza Order Forms)

1:00 pm – 2:35 pm

Qualifying Rounds Continue (in Sobrato Theater)

2:45 pm

Alliance Selection Process (in Sobrato Theater)

3:00 pm – 5:30 pm 4:30 pm

Playoffs (in Sobrato Theater) Skills Challenge field closes

~5:30 pm – 6:30 pm

Finals, Awards, Closing Ceremony (in Sobrato Theater)

Tournament Location

Bellarmine College Preparatory 960 W. Hedding St. San Jose, CA 95126//mapq.st/17Jl2d5

 

Street parking is very limited due to permit parking restrictions. On campus parking is marked with red on the campus map (linked below). The green boxes on the map represent the pit area.

View detailed campus map (PDF)

Concessions

Pizza will be available for $15 a large pie from Tony & Albas. Please order your pizzas by midnight on Nov 20 using this form. Please pay for your pizza when you check-in.

The following items will be available for purchase in the Liccardo Center (8am – 3pm):

• Vegetarian Egg Rolls
• Variety of Donuts, Muffins,
• Fresh Fruit & Oatmeal
• Cheetos and Cheez-Its & Coffee and Tea
• Oreo Cookies & Variety of Juices
• Candy Bars & Bottled Water
• Cliff Bars & Snapple Iced Tea
• Caesar Salad & Hot Chocolate
• Cinnamon Rolls
• Samosas

Awards Given

We have 5 qualifications for the VEX US Open (Excellence, Design and the tournament champions). Those teams, along with the finalists, also qualify for the California state championships.

iDesign will be offering a $100 gift certificate, which will go to the team that receives the Judges award.

 

Note that the skills rankings will be used to identify all additional teams that will be used to fill the state championship event to its capacity of 48 teams. Every team should realize the importance of this opportunity.

Info for Competitors

If you want to be considered for the Excellence or Design awards, you will need to sign up for an interview by 9:30am. Go to the Pit Manager to schedule (or change your appointment time if needed). The interview rooms are on the second floor of the Sobrato Theater building.

The skills challenge field is also on the 2nd floor of the Sobrato theater building. Teams are not limited to the number of attempts, however, any team with fewer than 3 attempts can move ahead of other teams waiting in line.

 

Teams will be scratched from the tournament if they have not checked in by 8:15am. If you are running late, please text 408-341-9066 or email [email protected] before 8:15am, or your team will not be able to compete.

 

Bring safety glasses, power strips, tools, programming cables, engineering notebook, RECF releases (available at: //content.vexrobotics.com/epdocs/VRC_ReleaseForm_012011.pdf). Be sure your robot can pass inspection!

Info for Novices

It is highly recommended for you to arrive Friday to go through the inspection and try a couple practice matches. Friday will be much more relaxed and our inspectors will be able to help you through the inspection process. Also, our field managers will be able to guide you through the competition process. Be sure to bring fully charged batteries, chargers, spare parts and tools in case anything breaks. Be sure your vexnet keys are working well. Lastly, double check your robot against the inspection check list.

At the tournament, check in by 8:15am. Check the match schedule when it is published (around 8:35am) and make sure you are ready for each match. Try to have fully charged batteries for each match. Be sure the drivers and coach have safety glasses when they arrive at the field to compete.

More information on the game is at the RobotEvents website. The current rankings for Robot Skills and Programming skills are listed there also.

VEX Tournament Map

The maps below show the tournament facilities located on the campus of Bellarmine College Preparatory. The red boxes denote campus parking, and the red lines show the best way to the parking spots. Green boxes identify the pits and blue lines show the best walkways to the pits. This PDF is a much larger version of the image below.

Bay Area Science Festival 2013

On November 2nd, several members from our team, along with our 2013 robot Overkill, participated in the Bay Area Science Festival. Along with other FRC teams, Team 254 was able to demo our robot to excited youth and adults. We were able to demo our shooter and our unique climbing abilities. We explained the basics of the robot and the game to curious youth and the intricacies of the robot to curious adults. Overall, we had a blast and hope to participate again.

Team 254F and 254A win VEX Tournament

On Saturday, October 19th, all 7 of Team 254’s VEX Teams competed at the Dougherty Valley High School Robotics Tournament in San Ramon. Subteams A through G competed well during qualification matches. One of the most memorable highlights was that in the first match of the tournament when four 254 teams ended up in the same match! Teams F and G beat Teams D and B in match that was both extremely unlikely and unfortunate to watch as it put 2 of our teams behind right from the beginning.   Because the tournament was running late, they had to cut number of qualification matches from a scheduled 7 down to only 4.  However, most of our teams still did well. Team F went undefeated and was ranked second. Teams D, A, and B finished in 19th, 20th, and 21st place, respectively.

During alliance selection Team 254F picked the Team 21, the Spur Flies and later Team 254A. Team 254G was picked by fourth ranked 8000A and later allied with Team 6088. Team 254D and 254E were picked by Team 1868X, the Space Cookies. Finally, Team 254B was chosen by Team 21C and allied with 9378A.

In the elimination matches, Team G’s alliance defeated Team B in the quarterfinals, and the alliance of Team D and E was eliminated by the number 1 ranked alliance, 9378R, 8000B, and 8000C.  In the semifinals, Team F eliminated Team G.  Team 254F and 254A went on to the finals to play against the number one ranked alliance. After 2 stressful and intense matches, Team F and Team A managed to capitalize on robot failures of the opposing alliance and secure a victory! By being the champions of the tournament, Teams F and A are now qualified for the California State Championship in March.

Take Flight For Kids

On October 19th, several members from our team had the opportunity to participate in the Take Flight for Kids event hosted by Valley Medical Center Foundation. Along with other FRC teams, Team 254 was able to present the 2013 robot, Overkill to the excited youth and adult that stopped by our booth. We explained the basics of the robot to curious youth and the intricacies of the robot to curious adults. Overall, we had a great time and had a lot of fun.

Shockwave Wins the Abbott Invention Hall of Fame Award

Shockwave, a promotional t-shirt shooting robot, was awarded the Abbott Invention Hall of Fame Award at the 2011 FIRST Silicon Valley Regional.

T-Shirt Cannon Publicity

The T-Shirt Cannon at Your Event

Team 254 is willing and able to bring our T-Shirt cannon to many events, including but not limited to:

• Sporting Events
• Spirit Rallies
• Community Events

The T-Shirt Cannon can be branded to meet the promotional requirements of any sponsor.

To Request to have the T-Shirt Cannon appear at your event, please contact our PR Director, Godwin Vincent.

Diversity Day, 2013

On August 7, several members from our team had the opportunity to participate in NASA’s Diversity Day. As a NASA house team, Team 254 was able to present three robots; Overkill, Skyfire, and Slipstream to NASA engineers and staff who stopped by our booth.

Mani Gnanasivam, James Holden, Andrew Torrance, Namit Mishra, Nick Gunady, Jack Lee, and Chris Sides attended.

After setting up the booth, the team members fielded questions from curious onlookers. Many NASA engineers were asked what program Team 254 used to design the robot, which programming languages were used, and other technical questions. All the team members answered questions asked by the dozens of people who stopped by the exhibit. After lunch, the members demonstrated Overkill’s frisbee and hanging abilities. Andrew Torrance explained multiple times to the crowd the the rules of last year’s game and Overkill’s scoring abilities. After presenting, we packed up and relaxed at the lab.

 

Sponsor Visits

Over the past three days, Team 254 has had the opportunity to visit two of its Gold level sponsors, BAE Systems and Ooyala, and demonstrate the fruits of its labor.

BAE Visit

On June 5, a multicultural group of five students and one mentor celebrated diversity with BAE at the BAE Systems Diversity Fair. The students participating were Nagy Hakim, Scott Cardona, Richard Lin, Abhi Kumar, and Louis Lin. Mentor Dennis Jenks provided Team 254 with the amazing opportunity to come to the fair. People in the event included many BAE engineers and programmers, who added excitement because students had a chance to talk to others who work in the same fields of interest.

Students transported two robots, Overkill and Shockwave, to the event to exhibit the team’s work and extend appreciation for BAE’s consistent support throughout the years. Many of their employees came out to visit the team’s pit and talk about the robots’ designs and controls. After opening ceremonies, Shockwave fired a barrage of T-shirts into a crowd. Later, drivers and operators demonstrated Overkill’s driving and frisbee shooting capabilities.

At the conclusion of the fair, Dennis led the students on a private tour around BAE’s impressive facility. Four tour guides exhibited the workings of BAE, including military vehicles, machines, simulations, and controls.

 

Ooyala Visit

Today, the team visited one of our Gold level sponsors, Ooyala. Our programming mentor Patrick Fairbank, who works at Ooyala, set the day up so the team could demo Overkill. The team visited their office, located in Mountain view and set up. There were about 40 or so members of the company that gathered around asking questions about the various subsystems and function of the robot.

Many members of the company also played Ultimate Frisbee after work on  a team. These members lined up on one end of the space set up while Abhi Kumar and Richard Lin drove the robot around, picking up and shooting frisbees towards the employees(At a much lower, catchable speed). Meanwhile, Nagy Hakim answered questions about the robot. At the end of the demo the team members stuck around for pizza and presented the award to Patrick for Ooyala’s sponsorship.

Team 254 thanks BAE Systems and Ooyala for their continued support in the robotics program.

Demo for 2013 Zero Robotics Winners

Yesterday, Mark Leon and Drew Price arranged for the current Zero Robotics Winners to tour the NASA Ames Facilities. Team 254 represented the NASA Robotics Alliance as part of the tour. The 20 or so members of their winning team filed in to the lab and were given a presentation by Abhi Kumar and Richard Lin as to the history, function, and current robot of the team. Afterwards, Abhi and Scotty Cardona demonstrated the robot’s shooting capabilities and hanging prowess. To finish off the tour, Mark took the group upstairs and talked more about the NASA Robotics Alliance and the summer Robotics Academy. As the members left, we brought Shockwave out onto the field and answered final questions for the group.

VEX Championship

This past weekend, five of our VEX teams attended the VEX World Championships in Anaheim, California.

Our five teams were distributed among five separate divisions and played ten matches each. Qualification matches began on Thursday afternoon, continuing through all of Friday and concluding on Saturday morning. Our teams met varied levels of success during qualification matches; the level of competition at Worlds was incredibly high. When matches concluded on Saturday, team 254D ranked highest, seeding 16th with 7 wins, 2 losses, and one tie. They were also the only team to be selected for eliminations, which happened in the afternoon. In divisional quarterfinals, 254D, with the drive team of Eli Wu, Andrew Torrance and Goutham Gnanasekaran, faced off against top-ranked Fuxing High School and former world champions, Green Egg Robotics. They managed to win an incredible upset in the first quarterfinals match, but lost the second match and in a stroke of bad luck lost the tiebreaker match when one of their alliance robots fell over early in the match. Despite this setback, we are all proud of having made it so far at World Championships.

Team 254 also excelled off the competition field. We were recognized during the tournament for the website award, which we tied with Team 1114 for 1st place in the world. In addition, our mentor Pat Fairbank, who has worked tirelessly over the year to ensure the success of our VEX program, was recognized for his efforts by winning the Mentor of the Year award, becoming one of only 2 mentors from around the world to win the award this year.

Next years’ VEX game, named Toss Up, was also revealed at World Championships on Friday evening. Many of our team members have already gotten to work planning for this new game and thinking about possible designs for next season. The 2012-2013 VEX season has officially ended, but our team members are already eagerly looking forward to making the 2013-2014 season a great one for Team 254.

Pre-STL Day 9: Step into High Gear

Manufacturing

Students started organizing new parts into their respective bins. Most of these parts will be spares for competition. In addition, a few mentors and students worked on deburring, polishing, and touching up parts which will be sent in for powder coating and anodizing.

Drivetrain

Students contine to fix the drivetrain. A dog gear broke yet again. Students worked on taking apart the drivetrain gearbox to replace it.

Intake

Students made new parts for the intake, including new mount side plates. Additionally, students began assembling the intake support gearbox.

Shooter

Students designed a one way valve in the shooter. This stop, made from a simple piece of bent polycarbonate, will allow the frisbee to leave the shooter in only one direction and prevent it from falling backwards. This stop is a simple mechanism to further eliminate possible jams that have plagued the robot for the better part of the season.

Other

Teams 973 and 846 stopped by to the lab for practing and tuning in preparation for the World Championship next week.

Pre-STL Day 8: Rolling with It

Shooter/Indexer 

Students and mentors worked diligently to replace one of the intake rollers with a BBD. Students also worked to troubleshoot an issue with the new intake hardstop that was causing hang-ups on the intake system.

Manufacturing

Working diligently to manufacture new intake gearbox plates to save weight, students cut stock metal to be milled in the CNC.

 

 

Pre-STL Day 7: Maintenance & Anticipation

Intake

Wooden blocks were added tonight to the practice robot to keep the polycarbonate base of the intake from touching the ground. This is one of a series of adjustments to the intake to make it more efficient, fluid, and functional. The polycarbonate base often gets caught in the carbonate causing jams and reduced mobility.

Shooter/Indexer

Even though the Frisbee hard stop was working last night, it was not today with the pin having trouble sliding the stopping plate up and down. This was solved by changing the hard stop to delrin and maintaining the mounting plates to aluminum. Also, students and mentors created two cross bars for the indexer. They also worked on shooter wheel mounting plates. Lastly, the team added temporary air tanks to the practice robot to allow for more shooting cycles and less refilling.

Drivers

Abhi and Jonathan Lee continued driver practice in preparation for the upcoming competition.

Sensors & Programming

Students and mentors tested hall effect sensors using Slipstream as a power source, because of drivers using Overkill to practice. The hall effect sensors would detect the presence of a magnetic field. When magnets are placed on the indexer mechanism, a feedback mechanism is created to determine whether or not the indexer mechanism is completely engaged in the correct position. On the programming side, programmers fine tuned various code for indexing and shooting.

Pre-STL Day 6: Packing

Today, students built a pallet to ship large items to St. Louis. They packed some very crucial items needed for Championship, including the robot cart, pit shelving, batteries, and lights for the trussing.

Lastly, programmers debugged some issues with the pit lights. The color effects no longer spawn new processes and overlap each other. Although pit lights are not a priority at the moment, students are making strong effort to make these functional to give the best appearance at the Championship event.

Pre-STL Day 5: Shopping Spree & Dieting

CAD

Today, students and mentors worked together to design new subsystems of the robot.  For instance, a new gearbox was designed for the intake lowering and raising, which would replace the current VEX planetary gearbox.  The VEX planetary was very inefficient and quite heavy. The new gearbox with its motor will be marginally heavier than the previous setup, and it has the benefit of a more favorable gear reduction. After the design work was completed and verified, the team went online to sites like AndyMark and McMaster to order these new necessary parts.  It is essential that these parts are ordered and arrive quickly, as time is running out before World Championships.

 

Dieting

The team is scrambling to find places to trim weight on the robot.  The new shooter wheels and intake gearbox are adding some weight to the robot, so the team trimmed some fat by removing the side panels, removing the pressure gauge support plate, and other areas. The 1/16″ side panels will eventually be replaced by side panels made of 1/32″ polycarb. Together, all the weight reductions will put us under weight. Although we are cutting it very close, we will eventually get to where we want to be.

 

Programming and Sensors

The programmers experimented with VEX bumper sensors as a means of detecting whether or not the frisbee is fully loaded in the indexer, and thus ready to transfer up to the shooter.  They attached two bumper sensors via double stick tape on either side of the hard-stop plate.  The next step of this is to wire the sensors to the digital sidecar and write up some codes.  When completed, the bump sensors will allow for increased speed of rapid fire. Tests will determine the reliability and durability of this setup to ensure it can survive the stresses of competition.