This contribution is from our friends at San Marino High School’s Titan Shield.
By Valerie Wang ‘16
For the past four weeks, rooms 207 and 308 have been busy with ordering parts, prototyping, and game discussion for the 2016 FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics competition, with the medieval theme of “Stronghold.”
FIRST Robotics Competition combines the excitement of sport with the rigors of science and technology. It’s the only school sport where all members may turn pro if they choose. Teams of high school students are challenged to build and program a robot to perform prescribed tasks against a field of competitors, raise funds, design a team “brand,” and hone teamwork skills. It’s as close to real-world business and engineering as a student can get – all within six weeks.
“So far, things have gone pretty smoothly. This year’s game is really complex, so creating a design that had all the crucial elements of success was difficult and stressful,” said Mechanics President Jessica Cameron (12).
The business and media team are also busy preparing for the Los Angeles Regional on March 9-12, 2016 and the Ventura Regional on March 23-26, 2016. Business members are preparing the submission for the Chairman’s award, the most prestigious award at FIRST. It honors the team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate and best embodies the purpose and goals of FIRST. Along with participating in the award submission, the business team is preparing to deck out the newly bought pit in medieval theme like the game.
“We are attempting to change our banners [of the pit], like adding a coat of arms, add pennants to go around the pit, and add some “torches” to really spice it up,” said Business President Sarah Hasel.
The goal of the media team is to continue enforcing Titanium Robotics’ image as defined in its brand book. Media Team Captain Keith Ng (12) leads the team to “create our media to represent our team under one unified and consistent message.”
Stronghold is played by two alliances of three teams each, and involves breaching the opponent’s’ defenses, known as outer works, and capturing their tower by first firing “boulders” (small foam balls) at it and then surrounding or scaling the tower using rungs. Points are scored by crossing elements of the tower’s outer works, shooting boulders into the opposing tower’s five goals in order to lower the tower strength, and by surrounding and scaling the tower.
The outer works is the series of five defensive obstacles that divide the neutral zone from the alliance sections. Four of the five used obstacles are modular and can be moved, and certain obstacles may or may not be present during a match. Options for defensive obstacles include a Cheval de frise, a “moat,” ramparts, a drawbridge, a Sally port, a portcullis, a rock wall, and “rough terrain”. There are over 18,000 possible field configurations from the eight defensive options.
The tower consists of five scoring goals, three scaling rungs, and a “batter.” Three high goals are 7 feet 1 inch above the playing field, and two low goals are six inches above the playing field. Three rungs for robots to scale the tower are 6 feet 4 inches from the playing field. Colored LED light strips on the front of the tower display the current tower strength. The “batter” is a series of seven 60 degree ramps at the base of the tower directly in front of the low goals designed to make challenging and scaling the tower difficult.
Currently on week 5, the robotics season starts reaching its peak stress with dedicated members attending work sessions almost every day to finalize the design of the practice bot. Titanium Robotics has been partnering with Boeing in order to approve the final CAD (Computer-Aided Design) of the final bot.
