The+competition

Once the building of he physical bot was finished, we decided on who the controller would be. Since Zane had the most experience with the bot and it's controls we all decided that it would be best if he controlled it. In addition to that the controls were rather complicated, because it was a six channel controller and it would take a little while from someone without any experience to operate it quickly and effectively. Our first competition was a maze. This tested not only our bots speed and maneuverability, but also the controllers skills with the remote. The maze started out with a series of turns which led to an area where it was required to hit a ball into a goal. For this we had the perfect set up because our arm hung out just in front of the bot, so we were able to nestle up close to the ball and then turn quickly, allowing the claw to hit the ball through the goal. Failure to get the ball in the goal would led to an additional two minutes being placed onto the teams time at the end of the maze. After the ball, there was a break in the maze and the bot could one or two ways. It could either go over a teeter - totter, which was the shortest way, or around more twists and turns. However, the shortest way was not the easiest. After the teeter - totter, there was a gravel pit, and going this way could end up the bot stuck and risk not finishing the maze. We chose to go the long way which was much easier that taking the gravel way because our bot was very good at turning, and traveled at a high speed. Half way through the maze the bot went under a curtain which made visibility for the second half impossible. The way to see where the bot was going was by a small camera mounted on the bot. This proved to be the toughest part of the maze because some of the walls were clear and it was tough to see that on the camera. Never the less, we took first in this event, utterly destroying the other competition. The next challenge we faced was the ball sorting. Prior to the actually going, we figured that we would destroy the others because of the arm we had. None of the other bots were capable of lifting objects to the height we were able to. However, despite our confidence, something went quite wrong. The part of our arm which allowed it to raise and lower came apart as soon as we started. We were still able to clamp objects, but we couldn't pick them up. As soon as this happened I thought we wouldn't be able to get first, but after some fantastic controlling by Zane, we were able to take the lead and actually crush the rest of the competition. The third and final competition was the ring stacking. The rings varied in size and were made out of styrofoam. We had two minutes to get the rings in the specified area. Placing the ring in the area was worth a certain amount of points per ring and the points varied per ring size. The smaller the ring, the higher the point value. Stacking the rings, was a bonus of five points per ring and if the rings were stacked on the rod, it was an additional five points. When it was our turn to go, we were very confidant that we would win. However, a few miscues led us to get only forth place. We had two rings on and stacked, and when we went to stack the third ring, we hit the other rings all over the place and even knocked one off. After the event was over, our team was tied for first with another team from Dover. The tie breaker went to the team who did the best in the ball sorting, and that jsut so happened to be us. The first ever Vex Robotics CHAMPIONS!!!!!