On April 7th, the final competition took place at the Recreation and Physical Activity Center (RPAC). Four robots performed simultaneously, with there being three rounds of round robin play and a single-elimination tournament. In the tournament, the team with the higher number of total points would win, and ties were broken based on time.
Strategy
The team decided to implement a completely new strategy for the final competition. A team’s general strategy for attacking the different tasks is overlaid an image of the course and is shown below.
This change in strategy was needed for many reasons. One reason was this new strategy saved a lot of time. The second reason is original strategy for pushing the car jack was very flawed and resulted in many problems during individual competition. This strategy was running the front of the robot into the car jack. This idea was flawed because positioning the robot to push up the car jack required very precise positioning that is very challenging with just shaft encoding. This new strategy allowed the robot to complete this task first which decreased the error. Also, a small stick of wood was added to the magnet arm that allowed the robot to approach the car jack from the side which required less precise positioning. Another change that was made for the final competition was the way the robot read the light would tell the robot whether to press the red or blue button. Positioning the robot to read the light with just one cds cell was very challenging. To avoid this problem, six cds cells were added to the right side of the robot, so the robot position did not have to be as precise. Another change the team made was having the robot go up the grass ramp instead of the non-grass ramp. The main reason for this change was it saved a lot of time. After these changes were made, the team felt confident that these changes would fix the problems that occurred during the individual competition and help the robot complete the course faster.
Results
The robot first had a practice run, followed by three Round Robin competitions (1, 2, 3). It then participated in the Head to Head competition, advancing to the Sweet Sixteen, but unable to go any further.
Analysis
Initially following the final competition, the team was disappointed with the last run and how the team was eliminated from the competition. The final competition exposed the strength and weaknesses of the robot. The robot was very fast, and there were only three other robots in the competition that were faster. The robot had also mechanisms that could account for error. Both the six CdS cells and the wheel turning mechanism worked successfully despite the robot positioning being slightly off from its intended position on many of the final competition runs. The bump switches also allowed the robot to correct itself. The weaknesses of the robot were exposed as well. The robot’s failure to consistently position itself is what caused the robot to run into the wall in the Sweet Sixteen. The robot’s failure to consistently pick up the wrench at consistent position caused many errors during the round robin runs. After this further analysis, the team was less disappointed with how the competition had gone. There were a lot of positives that came out of the final competition. The robot had two runs where it completed all of the primary tasks, and it had one run where it completed all of the primary and secondary tasks. Just like every other robot at the competition, the robot had its strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately, one of its weaknesses cost it a trip to the final four.