2009: Lunacy

The goal of the 2009’s competition “Lunacy was to collect “moon rocks” and score into trailers attached to the back of opposing robots. Lunacy featured special low friction wheels and was played on a slippery field to simulate the low gravity on the moon. Human interaction played a larger role in this year’s competition with the use of a Payload Specialist and Fuel Station manager, both of which tried to score by throwing moon rocks and bonus “Super Cells” into the trailer.

Our team built a four wheeled robot that with a tank-drive system. We also used a conveyor belt to pull up moon rocks into a hopper, which would be emptied later into opposing trailers. We attended the Microsoft Seattle Regional event at Key Arena in the Seattle Regional.

2008: FIRST Overdrive

The goal of the 2008 competition was to herd trackballs in laps around a circular track, with extra points awarded for “hurdling” the trackballs over an overpass. This was the first year of a “Hybrid” period instead of an “Autonomous” period, which allowed a human “robocoach” to send signals to the robot, such as “turn left” through an IR remote.

Our team built a robot with turning front wheels and driving back wheels, to mimic the design of a car.  We also had a pole to dislodge the balls off the overpass, but we did not implement a hurdling mechanism.

We attended the Microsoft Seattle Regional event in Tacoma, Washington and were part of the 2nd place alliance.

2007: Rack ‘n Roll

The objective of the competition was to raise torus-shaped game pieces and place them upon specially designed rack. The points were calculated with 2 to the nth power, where n was the number of tubes placed horizontally or vertically in a row. At the end of the round, robots scored points for being lifted off the ground.

Our team built a robot with a claw that could lift tubes to the lower two levels of the rack.  It was a 6 wheel, chain driven robot.  The design was good, but there were some issues with the quality of the build.  Our claw was smashed multiple times and had to be rebuilt and reinforced.

We attended the Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland Oregon.

2006: Aim High

Aim High, the 2006 competition, was about shooting balls into targets around the field.  The game was played in four rounds: an autonomous period, one alliance offense and one alliance defense, then offense and defense swapped, and then when any alliance could score.
This was our team’s rookie year and we attended the Pacific Northwest Regional in Portland, Oregon.