The Game
In this season, rather than placing or climbing items, the objective was to shoot particle balls (wiffle balls) into hoops. This basketball like game was a challenge for many teams and provided a great amount of innovation and design thinking incorporated into the game. Although it differed from many of the previous games from different years, it still incorporated some elements from former years. These include: beacon, ramps, and safe zones. We had a very fun time playing this game and we learned much about team cohesiveness, sportsmanship, and gracious professionalism.
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Season Achievements
- Finalist Alliance at the Burlingame Qualifier
- Think Award at the Burlingame Qualifier
- Finalist Alliance at the Daly City Qualifier
- Connect Award at the Daly City Qualifier
- 3rd Place Inspire at the Daly City Qualifier
- Qualified for NorCal Regional Championship
- NorCal FTCquel winner at the Bay Area Maker Faire
Our Robot
During the Velocity Vortex 2016-2017 season, we brainstormed many different methods on how we were going to design our robot. One solution was based on the tennis tube collection idea, which is the first picture on the right.
Once we finished building the basic outline of our robot, we began testing and making improvements to our shooting mechanism. We brainstormed a way much like how a machine gun operates, in which the cock would separate the rounds and rapidly opens and closes to let the rounds in. We also came up with an idea to use "arms" to touch the beacon. We tried and tested this design and it was surprisingly reliable. Furthermore, we also began to work on our cap ball mechanism, which we hoped to develop before our first competition. Although we weren’t able to complete it by our first contest, we built the extension system, based off on a pulley system. It uses a motor to pull a string that lifts up two drawer sliders, which lifts a fork that holds the cap ball. Eventually, we built two robots; one for demonstrations and outreach, and the new one for competitions. The new robot is much more sturdy because it was made of custom parts, which improved major weaknesses such as stability and robustness. |
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Season in Review
While our robot may not be perfect, it encompasses all of our hard work and dedication into this long journey. Even if we don’t qualify for the FTC West Super-Regional, we will still be proud of our robot and value all we have learned with it on and off the playing field. We will to continue to expand upon our outreach programs during the off season, and set high goals for next year.
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