First Robotics 2008

In late 2007, the newly formed Technology Booster Club decided to try to raise the $10,000 needed for Atholton High School to participate in the 2008 First Robotics competition. Thanks to contributions from NASA, Booz Allen Hamilton, Columbia Bank, AJM Enterprises, and the Lazarus Foundation the students are off on a big endeavor. Every year high schools all over the country design large, complicated robots to compete against each other according to rules that change every year. The local regional competition is in Annapolis on March 13-15, and the National Championship is in Atlanta in April.

The team has its own blog.

Note -- click on the thumbnails below to see larger images.

Kickoff - January 5th

Six of the students and mentors went to Capitol College in Laurel to learn the rules for this year's competition (Overdrive) and pick up the kit of parts that every team gets. The rest of the team stayed at Atholton and watched the presentation over the Web. In the afternoon the entire team met to discuss the rules, talk about possible designs, and map out a schedule to be ready to ship the robot on February 19th.

The competition takes place in an arena that is 20' wide and 52' long. There are fences on the outside of the arena and a fence in the center of the arena that is about 30' long and is parallel to the long direction of the arena. The general goal is to move large (~40" diameter) track balls counterclockwise around the track. There are two teams of three robots each. There are two track balls for each team and they are initially on a overpass about 6' above the course. The balls must be removed from the overpass and moved around the course. Extra points are awarded for having your team's ball pass over the overpass at the end of a lap, and further points are awarded for returning the ball to the overpass at the end of the game. Each game last 135 seconds. For the first 15 seconds (the Hybrid Period), the robots operate largely autonomously (there are four single-bit commands), and for the last 120 seconds (the Teleoperated Period) the robots are controlled by the team with a joystick.

Design Review - January 19th

ReviewAfter only one week of work (little could be done during the week of Januray 14th because of mid-term exams), the students had a design concept and a plan for its implementation that they presented to their mentors, parents, and a group of experienced engineers. The students chose a challenging design that will produce a very capable robot. The review team made many suggestions for improving their design and the implementation plan.

First Version - January 26th

robot on blocksThe students are staying after school for several hours each week day, and also working for about 8 hours on Saturday. Their teacher adviser and at least one parent mentor was with them all this time. At the end of the week after the review, the first version of the robot had been constructed (left photo). The robot had a chasis, four Mecanum wheels and their motors, a battery, a power distribution system, an electronics box, the on-board controller, and a comm link. In the picture the robot is up on blocks to facilitate testing. The motors could be controlled from an external joystick. A week with a lot accomplished!

Driving the Robot - February 2nd

drivingpoleherderAnother week with a lot of progress. The students can now test changes on the robot by driving it (left photo) around a room across the hall that is about the same size as the arena. With some new software the on-board gyro helps keep the robot driving in a strainght line. The firsts steps toward a hydraulic knock-off pole have made (center photo), and the first version of the herder was attached to the robot (right photo). The software team appears to be nearly ready to use the on-board accelerometers to track the position, velocity, and heading of the robot. Two more weeks until delivery.
Grabbing the Ball - February 10th

herderMost of the effort this week was to design, build, and test three systems for interacting with the ball -- the forklift, the herder, and the knockdown pole. Because of the weight limit for the robot, it can have either the forklift or both the knockdown pole and the herder, but not all of them.  By the end of the day, there was still quite a bit of work left to do on the forklift, and it was decided to stop work on it at the end of the following day unless it was ready. The last hour on the 10th was spent testing the herder using the software for the remote control, and this turned into quite an adventure. When the robot was first powered up, the wheels unexpectedly started turning. Fortunately, the robot was up on blocks and did not move, but the wheels snared some wires and broke them. Luckily no serious damage was done. After a few modifications, the herder would move forward to capture the ball and then retract using the remote control. The photo shows the herder with its two tennis balls slowly lowering by hydraulic power after a button was pressed on the TV remote control at the right edge of the image. A second button then caused the herder to raise back to its stowed position. The knockdown pole is in its stowed position on the far side of the robot, and some of the forklift hardware is attached on the left side of the robot (the opposite side from the herder).

Working Robot - February 11th

Today for the first time the team had a working version of the robot complete with the herder and knockdown pole remotely operated with the joystick. The team took the robot across the hall to the test track, knocked the ball off the overpass, captured it with herder, and drove it around the course. Hooray! Some repairs were needed after driving the robot into the wall, but the robot is basically ready for the Teleoperated Period of the competition. More software development is needed for the Hybrid Period. Tomorrow is pretty much a lost day since the school is unavailable to the team because it is a polling station for the primary election.

Demonstration - February 14th

herdingknock downThe team demonstrated the robot to the Atholton Technology Booster Club today. First they replaced the box for the electronics with one with a more open, accessible design. The change had many advantages, but required re-doing almost all of the wiring. All the hardware for the forklift was removed after the team reluctantly concluded there was not enough time left to get it working. The robot was a big hit with the Booster Club as it knocked the ball off the overpass (left photo) and herded it around the room (right photo). While all the robot functions worked properly, the robot did not seem to be moving as quickly as it had been. This was eventually traced to an easily fixed wiring error. Software for the Hybrid Period was written today, but still needs to be tested. Most of the remainder of the time before shipping on the 19th will be spent practicing operating the robot.

Testing - February 16th & 17th

On Saturday, February 16th the team travelled to Baltimore to scrimmage with other teams on a realistic test track. It was a great opportunity to operate the robot in a game-like environment and to discover what the competition has been doing. With 5 other robots on the course, traffic congestion quickly became a problem. Few teams chose to use Mecanum wheels, but their maneuveribility gives our robot a great advantage in traffic.  A collision with another robot damaged one of the Victors and demonstrated how vulnerable the robot is.

shipping containercode changesSunday, February 17th was a full day of work. First the damage from the previous day's scrimmage had to be repaired. Then some metal plates were designed, cut to size, and attached to the robot to provide protection. At the same time, construction of the large shipping container was finished, and then painted with the school colors (left photo). After the robot was repaired, the software team re-wrote (right photo) most of the code for the Hybrid Period. (Note the new bumpers with the team number.) The performance of the Mecanum wheels is very repeatable, but the robot has a tendancy to rotate slightly, especially when moving slowly. This is not much of a problem when controlled by a driver using the joystick, but it is a serious disadvantage when trying to operate the robot autonomously. After several hours trying different techniques, the team finally could command the robot to move forward, back, left, or right in a straight line. The robot was deemed ready for shipping.

Regional Competition - March 14th & 15th

robotics arenapit areaThe Regional Competition took place on Friday, March 14th and Saturday, March 15th, at the Halsey Field House at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Thursday was spent unpacking the robot, checking it out, and making the final adjustments. Most of the basketball court was devoted to the racing arena (left photo), and the surrounding stands were packed with the fans for the 60 teams. For 5 of the teams (including ours) this was their first competition. In the photo, our team is one of 3 in the "red" alliance, which has its robots against the fence on the far left of the track. Our robot is in the middle of the three with a green front panel. The 3 robots in the "blue" alliance are in the near right side of the track, driversand the "blue" drivers are just outside the near fence. Robots for the next run are lined up to the left of the track.. The "track balls" are the large red and blue balls on the causeway over the track. The team numbers in the current run are on the middle video screen behind the track (our team number is 2537). The rest of the basketball court (behind the three large video screens) was used as the pit area for the teams (right photo), where adjustments and repairs were made to the robots. Safety glasses were required for anyone in the pits.  Most of the teams were from the mid-Atlantic region, but there were also teams from as far away as Hawaii and England. The teams and their fans had friendly competitions in outrageous costumes (left photo), mascots, and making the most noise.

banneradjustmentsThe team (left photo with our banner) participated in 5 qualifying matches on Friday. Last minute adjustments (right photo) were often needed as the robot was positioned for the match. Since it was a round-robin style competition, we were in alliances with and competed against many different teams. Some teams had very elaborate mechanisms for throwing or carrying the track ball across the causeway (which scored the most points). A few teams specialized as "rabbits" -- racing around the course while ignoring the track balls. The robot behaved unexpectedly in the Hybrid Period (running with little input from the driver). On our test track, its performance was very repeatable -- it always traveled the same distance within a few inches in a specified time. But at the competition the distance varied by about 25%, which made designing the hybrid sequence pretty much a guess. Many other teams did not even participate in the Hybrid Period, but some could go completely around the track. A video of the third match for the team can be found on You Tube. See the Kickoff paragraph above for a brief explanation of the rules.

The team had three more matches on Saturday morning, and at the end of the 80 qualifying matches they ranked 24th out of the 60 teams -- very respectable for a "rookie" team.  Each of the top 8 teams then chose two teams for their alliances for the afternoon matches to determine the champions. Unfortunately our team was not chosen for the final set of alliances. The students were disappointed, but they could be proud of all that they had accomplished.