Robotics January Kickoff
After the game reveal, Barstow and the high school’s robotics team met together to talk about rules and the limitations of their robots. The robotics team made sure that students did not begin prototyping ideas or drawing them, so that they could have a more in-depth discussions later without their competition.
Leading up to the FIRST robotics build season, schools build up their teamwork and train their students on the months to come for the big days of robotics: kickoff and the competition. On Saturday, Jan. 3, the robotics team travelled to Barstow High School in Kansas City to meet with other teams from the Kansas City Area and watch the game release.
This year’s game is called “Recycle Rush,” and will pit alliances against each other in the race to collect trash around the arena. There are going to be three different game pieces in this competition, recycling bins, totes, and pool noodles which are called “litter.” By stacking up totes and recycling bins, and putting pool noodles in recycling bins or the landfill, teams earn points towards their team’s alliance. There is also a coopertition bonus for teams working together and putting four of the six yellow totes at midfield (alliances must work together, as each one only gets three, and four are necessary for the points). By doing this, team’s can further their standings in the brackets, however, this will not be as beneficial in the final rounds.
One of the limitations that has before been a staple of the competitions has been cast away, and that is dimensioning restraints. Although the robot must fit inside dimensions provided by FIRST, the robot can be deconstructed to fit inside the box, and then reconstructed to their liking as long as it is within the 6 ft. 6 in. While this opens up new opportunities, robots that are too big can interfere with the team’s alliance, and therefore hinder their performance, so there is in a way an informal restraint on size.
After the event and looking over the manual, the robotics team stressed to its students not to discuss their ideas until they arrived back at school. Students were able to go to the robotics room in the academy until 8 p.m. on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday following the game release.
Below are links to the various videos and manuals the team will be accessing throughout the build season to make sure that their robot is in accordance with rules and capable of the necessary functionality.
Links to look at for the 2015 season:
2015 FRC Game Reveal “Recycle Rush”
