ROBOTMAK3RS Blog

Sorry for the delay with this post... I've been busy discovering just how much time it can take to prepare for college placement exams and Calculus AP tests. :-) Here's a video that shows the capabilities of Power Surge's robot, "Spike". BTW, Spike is a reference to a voltage spike, which is another name for a power surge. The video shows what Spike can do in autonomous mode as well as tele-op (driver control) mode: One of the robot components shown in the video that might not be as well known as other parts of the robot is our Intake System, or our mechanism for retrieving pucks off the floor. At the regionals, we had an intake system that could get one puck at a time, and that required quite a bit of accuracy on the part of the driver. Also, the puck had to be on a flat area. This made it slow and unreliable for us to get pucks off the floor in matches. In preparation for Atlanta, we wanted to improve our intake system, since we thought opponents would probably ...

I'm waiting on some videos to post more about the FTC World Championships and our robot, but in the meantime you can see a video our team put together of our experience at the competition here . I also thought I'd post a description of this year's game so that readers can understand what's going on in the videos. You can click here to see an animation from FIRST that explains how the game works. At a tournament, teams first participate in several qualifying matches . During each qualifying match, two randomly selected teams ally with each other against two other randomly selected teams. The two winning teams gain 2 q ualifying points , while the two losing teams don't gain any. After the qualifying rounds, the team with the most qualifying points is ranked #1, and so on. But what happens if multiple teams have the same number of qualifying points? In this case, a somewhat-confusing tiebreaker is used. After each qualifying match, the four participating teams recie...

Power Surge had a great time competing at the FTC World Championships this year. Congratulations to the teams on the winning alliance: the RoboRaiders, Longhorns, and Jr. Bomb Squad! My team was ranked #1 in our division after winning all of our qualifying rounds, and made the highest score in both divisions (222). In the elimination rounds, we made it to the finals in our division (Edison), but a strange problem hit our robot and kept us from winning them. I'll be making some posts later on with pictures and videos of the event and of our robot. -Jonathan

The FIRST Championship event, held at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA, is coming right up. The FRC Championships, FTC World Championships, and FLL World Festival will all be held there during April 16-18. You can find more information about the event on FIRST's website, here . My FTC team, 2945 Power Surge, has been very busy for the past several weeks preparing for the FTC World Championships, and we're finishing up the final preparations on our robot, team shirts, pit banner, etc. We hope to see you there! -Jonathan http://www.teampowersurge.org/

Power Surge competed at the FTC NJ State Championship tournament on Saturday... another really fun event! 37 teams competed in the tournament. We won all our matches again, and recieved the Winning Alliance award with our alliance partners 121 Rhode Rage and 248 "P J FTC #2." We also recieved the Innovate award. The Inspire award was given to team "Techno Chix". Congratulations to all the winners! -Jonathan

EDIT: You can see videos of our robot that Ken Johnson posted on the FTC blog, here . Like I posted about earlier , the FTC Delaware Regional Tournament was held on Saturday. What an exciting event! It was held in conjunction with both the FLL and JFLL Delaware State Championship, so it was a pretty major event with lots of teams and spectators. Speaking of FLL, I was realizing at the tournament that I've now seen FLL from three totally different perspectives: as a team competing in it, as a referee, and now as an outsider looking in. It was interesting to see how vastly different these perspectives are, and it's also something that's good to keep in mind when one is refereeing or competing. 2945 Power Surge had a lot of fun competing and watching other teams compete. Our robot performed way beyond our expectations; we won all 11 of our matches, and recieved the Winning Alliance Award (equivalent to FLL's 1st Place Robot Performance) with our alliance partners 3165 Twi...

Team #2945 Power Surge, my FTC team, has been in high gear for the past several weeks preparing for our first regional (state) tournament, which is going to be held in Delaware tomorrow, 1/31. We've had a good amount of time to vastly improve our robot since our first scrimmage, and we're looking forward to an exciting competition. I'll be sure to post all about the tournament after it's over. -Jonathan P.S. You can learn more about the team and see pictures and a video at our website, http://www.teampowersurge.org/

There were several very nice surprises in the new LEGO Education catalog. Besides WeDo, there are three gems from HiTechnic . The first is a simple touch sensor multiplexer for the NXT. The idea is that by combining multiple touch sensor on one input port (but giving each a slightly different resistance), you can detect not only when one is pressed but which one is pressed. This was something that was commonly done with the RCX, but there hadn't been a commercial product to do it as yet for the NXT: it appears HiTechnic has stepped up and filled that gap. Four touch sensors can share a single input port on the NXT, greatly expanding the number of touch sensors you could use (at least 16; enough to build a simple keyboard, perhaps). The square "bumps" on the housing are spaced so that a studless beam nestles neatly between them, allowing you to "clamp" or "bracket" the housing in place (without going to the trouble of LEGO-certified pinholes etc.). Th...

...things are going well. Power Surge competed at its first scrimmage and its alliance came in second. It was a lot of fun; the aspect of having four big, powerful robots all in the same field competing with each other made it very exciting! Now we're working on improving our robot for the state regionals coming up. We've also put up a team website at http://www.teampowersurge.org/ . -Jonathan

Now that the FTC season has gotten underway and my team has been working on our robot, I've gotten a chance to work with the TETRIX pieces and to use the NXT and other LEGOs with them. The TETRIX system is really nice... it opens up so many possibilities with the NXT system. However, I like to think of it as a sort of "block building" system compared to the NXT. It doesn't have a very wide variety of parts, and most of those parts aren't very small pieces useful for making detailed mechanisms. This makes LEGOs very useful when you need a complicated design in the robot. The big, ultra-strong TETRIX metal is great for the framework and simple, powerful mechanisms, while the NXT pieces are helpful when you need something complex. We've already found a use for NXT pieces in one of our robot's modules, and I was really glad to have had experience with the NXT beforehand. If anyone out there is looking to join an FTC team, your skill with LEGO MINDSTORMS could ...

The parts system being used for the FTC competition (besides the NXT), TETRIX, is available to the public on Pitsco's website, here . Although the parts are pretty expensive, this system basically allows you to take your NXT to the next level. 12-volt DC motors and strong aluminum beams and other parts let you build big robots that are still controlled by the NXT Brick. With the motor controllers that allow the NXT to control the non-LEGO motors, you can have many more than three motors; by stringing motor controllers together, you can have almost as many motors as you want, provided you have enough batteries. One important problem with the Pitsco store is that it doesn't seem to sell the HiTechnic controllers which are required to let the NXT interface with the TETRIX motors. Hopefully these will be available from HiTechnic soon. -Jonathan

In preparation for the FTC competition, I've been getting familiar with RobotC, the language we're planning to use. In order to test my programs, I built a small rover that uses treads. Since the new plastic treads don't have good traction, I used the black rubber treads. Now, I don't think I've ever gotten a really good design with these treads! They're so small that it's hard to really secure them to the outside of a robot well. When I'd make a rover with these treads sticking out on both sides, I had trouble with the treads bending out and the chassis "sagging". So this time, I tried spreading the weight out more evenly, by positioning the motors directly above the treads. The result was really nice... a very strong and compact design that had no trouble with wheel camber. I even found a snug little place for the Ultrasonic sensor. :-) Notice that the treads are connected to the robot from both sides, increasing the strength of the chassis....

This year, Built On The Rock is taking a break from FLL. However, a couple of the team members and I are forming a new FTC team with some members of Team Overdrive, the World Festival robot champions from last year's FTC competition. (The other members decided to move up to FRC this year). The new robot system used in FTC, which combines the NXT with stronger, more powerful, non-LEGO construction pieces and motors, looks really nice. It makes sense too; the NXT has great processing and sensory power, but the LEGO construction system and NXT motors just aren't made for big, strong robots. Once we get our kit and the season gets underway, I'm hoping to post a lot more information about the system; it seems like it could be really useful for many applications other than FTC. Any other NXT people out there looking at or getting into FTC? -Jonathan

HiTechnic's Development Lab now has information about their FTC motor controllers. I was most surprised to see that the big powerful motors actually can have rotation sensors on them, contrary to what I heard at the World Festival. This is great news, since it will probably let FTC robots have much better accuracy in pre-programmed movements. -Jonathan

Reader basicxman sent me a message letting me know about some updates that have gone out (via email) to FTC teams. A portion of that notification is below (edited), including a Bill of Materials and a video examining the product. Check out the links below. Jim ----- Registration Is Now Open The 2008 FTC Season Registration is now open. How do you register, you ask? Well, let us take a moment to tell you! Go to our registration web site: http://www.usfirst.org/ community/fvc/content.aspx?id= 750 If you are a returning team, log in and select the team you would like to register. If you are a new team, follow the instructions to create a login. o A login and password will be emailed to you o Use login and password to access registration site o Create a new team Complete all the required fields **hint: required fields have an X next to them** When the required fields are completed, follow the "Program Fee" link to complete your registration **hint: the ...

Special thanks to Dave Parker for taking some great closeup photos of the new FTC kit (I'm a very poor photographer - just not my thing) that I'm including here. My one photo of the kit was too blurry for use. Be sure to read Dave Parker's post (right below this one) for more details about the kit and the competition design. Anyway, as you can see, you get about 100+ aluminum parts (I believe the name they are giving to these components is Tetrix, but don't hold me to that). In addition, you get the NXT Education Base Set, 3 software packages (NXT-G, RobotC, and NI LabView), 2 Li-Ion battery packs, 8 wheels (2 different sizes), numerous gears (some about 1/4" thick), remote control, 8 motors (2 distinct types), 5 NXT sensors, special connectors for connecting Technic to Aluminum (see photo), and 2 special devices from HiTechnic that connect the electronics to the Brick. The price that I was given is $900 and I was told orders would be taken starting in May and d...

I have posted several snapshots from my trip to the 2008 FIRST Championship, including the FLL World Festival, FTC Championship, new FTC Showcase, and FRC Championships here .

While at World Festival, I've been given the opportunity to snap pictures, take video, and ask questions galore... about FTC. So, help me out here, dear readers... I can't imagine all the questions you've got about the changes to FTC as well as the new product, so post them here and I'll collect them and take with me... and post answers as soon as I can. And PLEASE keep it civil... I know there's a LOT of "debate" about these changes, but let's keep the questions polite.

For those of you following the recent news about changes to FTC, the blog has been updated with some additional information on the sensors and more. Read about it here . I get the impression that there's not a lot of finalized answers just yet about the final "kit," whatever form it may take. There's also been no official word (that I can find) about whether VEX will still be allowed in the competition. There is mention that 12 teams will be demonstrating the new product at World Festival in April and those of us from the blog who will be in attendance will do our best to get pictures and more information.

Some more information was made available over at http://www.firsttechchallenge.blogspot.com/ regarding how the NXT will be used in the FTC challenge - looks like HiTechnic is developing something specifically geared towards bridging the NXT and more advanced servos (and sensors). Right now, the big discussion seems to be centering on teams having to purchase new equipment (and more expensive, apparently). There doesn't seem to be a firm answer on whether VEX will still be supported (allowed) in FTC competition.