Find information on the regional here: http://www.virginiafirst.org/

Follow the Pirates on Twitter here: http://www.twitter.com/frcteam1058/

A brief summary of the competition and FIRST Teams: Each team had only 6 weeks to design and create working robots that could accomplish complicated tasks under human control and also autonomously.  These robots had to have been built in a timely manor while also obeying very specific rules and regulations to be able to compete.

The task of the competition, named ‘Logomotion’, was for robots to retrieve circle, triangle, and square inflatable tubes and place them on scoring pegs on the field.  Additional points were awarded for placing a tube during the autonomous period (a fifteen second time period at the beginning of the match where the robots must control themselves), creating FIRST Robotic’s Logo, or deploying a “minibot” to ascend a pole during the end portion of the match.  A detailed explanation of the rules and the competition can be found here.

The first day of competitions began on Thursday, March 3rd. This day was reserved for practice rounds where each team began competing for the first time. After a few technical difficulties in the morning, the Pirates were on to a good start.

The second day of competitions began on Friday, March 4th.  This day was reserved for seeding matches to determine alliance partners for Saturday’s elimination round. After continuing problems in the morning, Team 1058 rallied to remain in the competition.

After the day of competitions several awards were presented to the  robots and teams themselves. One included the Innovation in Design Award sponsored by Xerox.  This award was presented to a team who showed an innovative design feature that was successfully implemented.  Thanks to senior Brendan McLeod’s extremely clever “locking-mechanum wheels” (wheels that allow the robot to move in almost any direction which thanks to the modifications could be locked to provide the robot with more traction), FIRST Robotics Team 1058 took home this award. Congratulations to all.

The third and final day of the Granite State Regional on Saturday, March 5th, began much better for the PVC Pirates. After a few final seeding matches in the morning, Team 1058 was selected to be a part of the number 2 seeded team’s alliance in the finals.  The team, after scoring and executing extremely well in their first elimination games made it to the semi-final round.  There they receieved their first, and then second loss which caused them to be eliminated.

The PVC Pirates did an amazing job this year.   I have seen the entire 6 week process from a collection of ideas in the minds of those on the team to a functioning robot on the field.  Thank you to all who were involved with the 2010-2011 FIRST Robotics Team 1058 (PVC Pirates) for making a rewarding experience for everyone.

See you there!

The week before the ship date is always the busiest.  That is when the several weeks of careful planning and preparation have to come together to create the finished product that is a competitive FRC robot.

With GSR (Granite State Regional) right around the corner we are scrambling to pull everything together.

See you at GSR!

Nevertheless, the PVC Pirates have made a lot of progress.  Having successfully prototyped a working claw mechanism, we are busy ordering parts and taking care of a few logistics concerning the robot.  The boom/arm mechanism is also being prototyped to see if our relatively unique design will be effective.

A major break through for the team is the design of the minibot.  Without revealing too much information, the idea is to use magnets to attach to the metal pole and use a clever spool-and-string method with the motors to achieve the maximum amount of speed for the least amount of effort.  This design, which is in the process of being completed, will ultimately give our team a significant advantage during competitions.

The second weekend of build season will mark several achievements.  Several components of the robot will be further prototyped and the minibot design will be closed to finalized.

Several key points came from Week 1 of the 2011 Build Season.   An important update came from FIRST concerning the minibot, or a small mechanism used to ascend a pole to gain bonus points at the end of a match. There had been some debate on whether it needed to be powered solely by the allowed motors, or if our robot could assist it.  The language in the first team update was very clear:

<G19> means that HOSTBOTS are not allowed to launch the MINIBOT up the pole at the TARGET, or otherwise contribute to the vertical movement of the MINIBOT. Energy for vertical movement may not be stored in the MINIBOT before DEPLOYMENT (except that which is contained within the battery and excluding incidental kinetic energy stored in the motors or wheels, but NOT, for example, in a flywheel). 

Another key design decision was to obtain a new, more powerful transmission for the robot.  These will allow more power to be transferred to the robot in a lower gear ratio. This will give the drivers more control of the robot in select situations.

As we move into the second week of build season, designs will continue to emerge, prototyping will move into full swing, and the winter weather may start having an effect on the team.

P.S. 

You can follow the PVC Pirates at twitter.com/frcteam1058

There you can find updates about the meetings, progress on the robot, and important information regarding the team.

UPDATE: Soon after the event (11:00AM ET), all FIRST sites are down.  Waiting for external links and Kit of Parts Checklist.

FIRST has announced the game for this year’s challenge – Logomotion!  This can be seen from the hints given prior to the live Kickoff event.  One was seen here - a reversed picture of the singer Little Eva. The other hint, was a seemingly unmodified version of the FIRST Logo.

We now know what these mean.  One of Little Eva’s hits was Loco-motion.  The other hint was in fact an unmodified version of the logo.  These two hints combined to create the game title Logomotion.

During the Kickoff event several of the speakers walked on stage holding colored inflatable tubes.  The first was a yellow, circular inner tube.  The second was a red triangle.  The third, was a white circle.  The fourth, a blue square.  These remained on stage during the speech until finally being manipulated during the final presentation before announcement of the game.  The inflatables were stacked, red triangle, then white circle, then blue square.  Those who knows FIRST knows that these elements combined form the FIRST logo.  Speculation built among our team as we watched the live feed and our members at the live event.

Finally, the curtains came down and revealed the brand new game field for this year.  The rectangular field was relatively open with several lines and markings on the floor and most notably four tall towers towards the center of the field.  At each end of the field, opposite from each team (or alliance) is their own “Scoring Zone”, requiring each team’s robot to completely traverse the field in order to score.  How will the robots score you ask? The inflatable tubes that were displayed during the presentations are the scoring pieces. The red, white, and blue shapes can be hung on pegs at each scoring zone.  There are three rows of 3 pegs, creating a 3 x 3 grid to score on.  Any game piece can be placed on any peg, but the higher level pegs will reward more points.  More points will be awarded if the teams create the first logo (triangle, then circle, then square) on a single row.  The yellow circle also has a significance, but more on that soon.

A match consists of 6 FIRST teams.  These six teams will be divided into two alliances, one red and one blue.  These three teams will work together to win as an alliance.  The interesting thing about FIRST is that a team you are in an alliance with in one match could very well be your opponent in the next match.  This encourage FIRST ideals on teamwork and collaboration.  During tournaments and other events teams win as an alliance, not a specific team.

Each match is 2 minutes and 15 seconds in length.  This time is broken up into 15 seconds of autonomous mode and 2 minutes of “teleoperated”, or human controlled time.  During the first 15 seconds robots will have to operate independently, with absolutely no human interaction.  During this time the robots try to place the yellow circular tubes, called “ubertubes”, on scoring pegs.  If teams are successful in doing this, any game pieces placed on the same peg as an “ubertube” will be worth double the original point value.

After the autonomous period, drive teams (consisting of a driver, and operator, a human player, and a coach) are allowed to take control of their robot.  These members must work together to deliver game pieces to their robot, via the human player, and score additional points.

Play will continue until time expires.  However, 15 seconds before the end of the match, the towers on the field will illuminate and blink.  This signals the opportunity for the highest scoring opportunity of a match.  10 seconds before the match concludes, the lights on the towers will become steady.  Robots may then deploy “minibots” from their main, or ‘host’, robot.  These minibots will have to climb the poles on the tower and be the first to reach the top.  The first robot to reach the top of the tower will award their alliance with the most points, and the subsequent minibots to reach the top of the tower will be awarded a reduced point value.  The catch with these minibots is that they must be built entirely from FTC (First Tech Challenge) parts, a lower devision of FIRST; encouraging FRC teams to work with FTC teams to keep robotics programs working together.

Along with the announcement of the game came the release of the official Game Manual, a 73 page document explicitly outlining the rules and regulations of the game, as well as strict requirements as to how the robot must be built.  The challenge each team must face now is to build a completely working, and legal, robot for the first round of competitions in just 6 weeks.

The PVC Pirates have been creating a malestorm of ideas and are already working hard to create a great robot.

Wish us luck, follow us on twitter, and see you at the competition!

This is Max, the PVC Pirate’s newest webmaster.

For 2011, I am dusting off the FTP server and making a New Year’s resolution to bring back the PVC Pirates web blog.  I am especially excited about this as I have been sporadically blogging for some time.  I will also be working on some much needed updates to the website, as I have been doing some web design work for some time.

I am new to the robotics team this year as a senior, but I have followed FIRST Team 1058 for over a year.  I have seen the team go from a group of people designing and machining in the school after hours to a team of regional champions.  Hoping to keep their prestigious reputation tact, I will do my part in maintaining the website and blog to keep an organized and timely record of the team’s accomplishments and goals.

The New Year marks a special time for FIRST robotics teams across the country.  That is because this Saturday, January 8th is Kick-Off! That’s right, Kick-Off – the day where robotics teams start meeting as much as possible to go from a small kit of parts to a working (and winning) robot, in just 6 weeks.  With limited information on the game this year, we will be sending several robotics team members, including team captain Brendan McLeod, down to SNHU (Southern New Hampshire University) to receive the anxiously awaited news on what this year’s robot will have to achieve.

Other members of the PVC Pirates, and others who want to watch the live event, will be doing so on the 8th thanks in part by NASA.  NASA will be broadcasting the Kickoff Event on NASATV, as well as streaming it live online.

Best of Luck to Team 1058 in 2011!

Speaking of Atlanta we’ve had good luck so far raising the funds on short notice. We were very fortunate to have one of our main sponsors this year JCPenney donate enough to cover the cost of registration (in addition to what they had donated already) as well as a donation from Show Ready Events. Mike Sr. and his company Fleet Ready were able to hook us up with one of his clients ABF Freight who were very generous as well by providing us free shipping of our cart, tools, and spare parts to the Championship. No road trip this year (thankfully!) And a special thanks to Team 2415 The Wired Cats for accepting the shipment from ABF and bringing it to the Georgia Dome for us. Thanks guys! There are some more deals in the works so once those are finalized I’ll post them here too. Although we’ve raised enough to get there, our students and mentors have still had to spend hundreds of dollars each to get there, so we’re still looking for any additional contributions to help bring the costs down. Anyone interested in helping fund the team can make a donation right on our website through paypal! Super fast and super safe, so if you were thinking about donating check out our home page!

On a semi-related note; FIRST Founder and innovative-genius Dean Kamen was recently on the Colbert Report showing off his robotic arm and talking about FIRST. The arm is truly an incredible piece of technology! Check out the video:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/269864/april-05-2010/dean-kamen

Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you all in Atlanta!
-Mike Jr.
Mentor/ Driver Coach

42 oz. bag of Peanut M&Ms

#2 – Susan DeVeber

$5 Play (N) Trade Giftcard

#152 – Jeffry Taylor

Autographed Team Photo

#151 -Karen Olmstead

$5 Play (N) Trade Giftcard

#128 – Stephen Tallo

Autographed Team Photo

#105 – Joy Hefley

That’s all folks. Everyone who got giftcards, m&ms, etc – your prizes will be given to the students who sold your tickets to pass on to you. Team photos are being printed & will be autographed and ready for Monday. Thank you everyone for participating and bearing with us. It’s hard to fundraise AND build a robot all at the same time. But without the money we raised from it, we wouldn’t even be able to compete – so once again thank you everyone!