St. Louis 2016
Departure
Made by Roman Synovitz
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Second day
Made by Roman Synovitz
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February 2016, the International School of Prague hosted its second CEESA/FIRST Tech Challenge Robotics tournament. Along with our own FaclonTech team, teams from Venice, Warsaw, Bucharest, Sofia, Tirana, Istanbul, Moscow, Hague, Vienna, and Tirana. Each team brought their own unique robot to complete the challenge and hopefully earn the opportunity to travel to St. Louis for the world’s competition.
Background Information
CEESA - Steps to victory
Competition - What to do?
The challenge itself was complex: four robots in teams of two were placed upon a rectangular playing field, with two large ramps in opposite corners and debris distributed randomly around the field. The objectives were to place objects into specific zones, trigger zip lines with switches, and climb up the ramps.
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The first part of the challenge was the autonomous period, in which robots moved on their own and completed a pre-programmed set of actions. Next, comes the driver-operated mode, where one primary and one secondary driver use controllers to drive the robot around the field. One round last for three minutes — thirty seconds of autonomous, and two and a half minutes of driver-controlled. All of this may seem simple, but all of this had to be done by robots built and programmed from scratch by students.
Days of Fights
The first day was dedicated to finishing the robot and making sure that the programs ran well before the competition started. Most teams did not have a fully functional robots; FalconTech’s could only go forwards and backwards. The ISP team was busy with preparations: Richard and Daniel programmed autonomous, Alex was set up and fine-tuned the driver-operated part, and the builders were put some finishing touches on the robot.
First day
Second day
Eventually, Saturday rolled around, and the day two of the competition began. Finally the preliminary rounds could start. The FalconTech team was doing well, collecting points mainly by climbing the ramp. Richard was the coach, with Alex as the primary driver and Roman as the secondary driver.
Final
They finished fifth in the qualifying matches, and were picked as a partner by the WattsUp team from the Netherlands, which means that they proceeded into the semifinals. Sadly, they did not make it into the finals. However, FalconTech was selected for the Inspire award, which means that they are invited to the next level of FTC – the world championship in St. Louis.
Conclusion
Overall, this was a great experience for all of the members of the team. It was very stressful and a lot of pressure, but in the end, the team pulled through, with unexpected but amazing results. The team is looking forward to another fun competition at the world championship!
Written by Violet Burbank
20 February 2016
