From April 24 to April 28, the Aragon Robotics Team (ART) traveled to St. Louis, Missouri to compete in the For the Inspiration and Recreation of Science and Technology (FIRST) Robotics World Championships. ART competed in both the Silicon Valley Regional (SVR) and Central Valley Regional (CVR) earlier this year, qualifying for St. Louis at the CVR.
At FIRST, ART placed 81st out of 100 teams in the Archimedes division, in contrast to last year when they placed 11th in the Newton division, a lower division than Archimedes. ART was not picked as one of the top eight teams to enter the semi-finals. Says team member and junior Priyam Das, “Our division had a lot of top teams in it, so we unfortunately had to face against some of the powerhouse teams. Overall, we are still really happy about the way we performed because every match we were scoring almost over 100 points. We had many close matches where we only lost by ten points, so it was really tough out there.”
This is a common sentiment felt by many on the team—that though they may have numerically scored lower, the heightened competition of the Archimedes division compensated for the modest ranking. Says sophomore Guy Geva, “Archimedes was the toughest division. And even though we ranked a lot lower, it’s a unanimous feeling on our team that we performed better this year than last year… Our robot didn’t break once.”
This year’s game was called “Ultimate Assent” and challenged teams to build robots that could shoot frisbees into goals and climb a pyramid. Explains science teacher and ART advisor Arron Apperson, “The robot has two main objectives: one is the frisbee toss. For that, looking at how we aim, perfecting the actual delivery system and making sure the motor is spinning at the right speed were all things that we were working on. For the lift, we had to make sure there was a plan in place for how we got it to lift effectively.”
The objective was to earn the most points; different goals were worth different point values, and teams were rewarded additional points based on how high they climbed on the pyramid. The first 15 seconds were designated an “autonomous mode,” in which teams had to control robots only using pre-programmed code. Following that, drivers controlled their robots remotely from stations. In the last 30 seconds, the robots raced to climb the pyramid. During the matches, the drivers and coach ran the robot on the field, while the pit monkey remained in the pit talking to the judges. The rest of the team sat with the faculty advisors on the sidelines to cheer.
One problem the team faced was being blocked by other robots during the frisbee-shooting part of the competition. Says Geva, “Since our strategy was to stay at one side of the court and shoot all the way across, it made us be easily blocked, because the other teams would have big screens and drive up to you to block you. So we would work with our alliance members to figure out strategies around that. We would have [them] do counter defense—block them from blocking us.”
Senior Alvin Ho agrees that three-on-three alliances were a big aid to ART’s robot during the competition. Notes Ho, “Basically, being a full court shooter, we were hoping for an alliance with a lot of floor pickup so we could provide disks to them down the field. We didn’t have that much versatility; we could only shoot from two positions. But if you’re on an alliance that had floor pickup, then anything you missed, they could pick up off the floor.”
Ultimately there was a limit to how much the alliance could help. Explains Ho, “What we would have people do at CVR and SVR is have a team push a blocker away so we would be able to clear our shots, but at championships, every team tried to show off their own shooter ability, so nobody wanted to help us push, so most of the game we were just blocked off.”
Before the competition, the team had to extensively prepare both mechanically and by raising enough money to attend, through both corporate sponsors and restaurant fundraisers. Says Geva, “We had to do a lot of fundraising beforehand. Just registering cost $5,000, but the hotel fees and airfare [cost] a lot more.”
In the fall, the team had six weeks to first build their robot. After that, it was bagged up by a representative from the competition, so the teams could not make changes until right before the competition. Notes sophomore Candy Zhang, “You’re not actually supposed to work on the bot itself, but you can, for example, make a second bot or machine replacement parts.”
Upon arriving home, the robotics team members embraced an ART tradition and sported red-dyed hair. Says junior Darrell Ten, “We dye our hair red for team spirit, for both Aragon and the Aragon Robotics Team.”
