Full steam ahead: Philomath robotics students work hard on challenge – Corvallis Gazette Times

PHRED hopes to pick up steam through qualifying tournaments this month and make it into Aprils First Robotics Challenge district championship.

The Philomath High Robotics Engineering Division team participated Feb. 18 in the annual FRC scrimmage at Corvallis High School and team members felt it went well.

I'd say that we did better than we do most years since we had a mostly functional robot on the field and everyone who was interested had a chance to drive the robot and act as a human player, sophomore Konoha Tomono-Duval said. We also had a chance to find any problems that might affect us later and we've been fixing those up until bag day.

Bag day occurred this past Wednesday and represents when the team must stop working on the robot and put it in a bag until competition.

For me personally, I had a chance to drive and I spent some time as the drive coach, which is what I'll be doing in the competition, Tomono-Duval said. That means helping the drivers set up, watching the field and talking with our teammates about strategy. I think that the scrimmage went well.

In all, 25 teams from across the Pacific Northwest participated in the opportunity to try out their robots. PHRED Team 847 will compete March 9-11 in Wilsonville at the District 3 qualifier. Two weeks later, the team will head to Clackamas Academy in Oregon City for a qualifying event. This years district championship is scheduled for April 6-8 at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, Washington.

At last years scrimmage, the teams robot wasnt functional until the event had nearly ended.

We were able to do 90 percent of what we need to do for the competition, said sophomore Daniel Arthurs, now in his third year with robotics. We were able to average three gears on the airship while most teams were able to only get one or two.

The PHRED robot didnt perform perfectly, however, with some kinks to work out.

During a few of our matches, the chain powering the front right wheel fell off and in two rounds a gear that we were trying to collect fell into a slot in the robot, Tomono-Duval said. There was also some work we hadn't finished on the autonomous programming.

In the days after the scrimmage, the students got back to work.

We solved the chain problem by moving a motor backwards/sprocket sideways and just added a piece of plastic to stop gears from catching in the robot's front, Tomono-Duval said. The programmers on the team can work on software after bag day, so time isn't much of an issue while they're adding to the code.

Arthurs added, We were not able to do any climbing, but that did work later at the shop, so hopefully that problem has been fixed.

This years FRC game, called Steamworks, is described by FIRST as inviting two adventurers clubs, in an era where steam power reigns, to prepare their airships for a long distance ride. Each three-robot alliance must build steam pressure through the collection of fuel (which are balls), start the rotors and deliver gears to pilots on their airship for installation. Eventually, they prepare for flight with robots latching onto their airship before the end of the match.

Points are scored during the 15-second autonomous period when the robot operates only on pre-programmed instructions. Student drivers take over for the remaining 2:15 of the game, working with teams on the alliance to collect as many points as possible before the end of the match.

Freshman Elliot Foley said in the Steamworks game, the robots have to move a lot faster so it's more difficult to control fine movements and since the robots are bigger, it is harder to be as precise, especially since we are manipulating the gears.

Each team member enjoys robotics for their own reasons. Foley is among those students in his first year.

It has all the good parts that you get from sports without the bad parts, Foley said. Also the robotics team is like a family.

For Tomono-Duval, he likes either working with the rest of the team in the design phase or at competition strategizing with our allies for the match.

Team camaraderie is another attractive benefit for many students.

What I like best is going to the competitions, staying in the hotels and hanging out with friends, Arthurs said. It is a place where you can learn and have fun with what you put all your hard work and effort into.

One common characteristic is the commitment that each team member puts in.

While the season doesn't go for as long as a sports team, there's still the year-round weekly meetings, projects and fundraisers and the longer Saturday meetings, Tomono-Duval said. Plus, there's the time at competitions. Yes, it can get intense at times. But it has the focus and teamwork of a sport, while being a fun mental challenge and project.

And you learn some interesting skills that you can use later in life that aren't in the high school. In the end, it's also just fun, he added.

During build season, students meet five to six days a week with all-day sessions on Saturdays.

There isn't a lot of personal free time during build season, Arthurs said. I do it because I get to learn a lot about robotics including how to wire a robot and code in Java.

Foley is enjoying all aspects of the experience.

Its intense because of the time commitment, Foley said. I am involved because I enjoy the learning experience, team environment and competition.

PHRED also supports a First Tech Challenge team, which has been doing well this season. In fact, team No. 8892 just competed Sunday at Benson Polytechnic High School in Portland in the FIRST Tech Challenge Championship.

The Philomath team won three of its matches and placed 10th in the Tech division one of two at the competition. Team 8892 didnt make it to the semifinals.

This is the first year the PHRED FTC team has qualified for the state tournament, so that was a milestone in itself, mentor Tom Thompson said. The team also got one of the autonomous modes working so they were able to score more points during that part of the game. I think we learned a lot from seeing this level of competition that we can apply to the next season.

The FTC robots, which are smaller than their FRC counterparts, features team members that range in age from the seventh to 12th grades. This years competition, Velocity Vortex, involves two teams of two robots trying to score points through various tasks, primarily shooting whiffle balls in the right place.

The hardest single action in the game is raising the cap ball exercise ball up almost 4 feet and placing it in the center vortex, a plastic ring, Tomono-Duval, who is involved with both FRC and FTC, said about the game. For the whole match, it would be efficiently scoring in the center vortex. During the whole season, I think it was making a good autonomous program for when you don't have control of the robot that hit the randomized button accurately. Getting the sensors working was hard.

The FTC team started building its robot this past fall and first competed Jan. 29 in a meet at Oregon State University. The PHRED team came in third qualification, was a team captain of one of the four championship alliances and won the Motivate Award.

Team 8892 advanced to a super-qualifier Feb. 12 at Poynter Middle School in Hillsboro and came in fifth. Due to the second- and third-place teams forming an alliance, PHRED became the captain of the fourth-place championship alliance.

The appearance went well enough for Team 8892 to advance to this past weekends FTC championship in Portland.

Follow this link:

Full steam ahead: Philomath robotics students work hard on challenge - Corvallis Gazette Times