2018 Deep Blue Robotics Recap – Week 1

This Year’s Game:

Game Basics:

Alliances of three robots each compete to take control of two switches and a scale using “power cubes” (milk crates). Our alliance is to place the power cubes on the switches and scale so that they tilt in our favor. For every second the switches and scale tilt towards our side, we get one point.

Also, do not eat the power cubes.

Our Robot:

After carefully considering ideas for strategy and our robot concept, we have settled on 5 different mechanisms: a cube intake/outtake, a lift, a climber, an assisted climbing, and a cube orientation manipulator.

Strategy:

We spent our first day discussing and planning what believe to be the best strategy for the game. Everybody broke off into small groups to make multiple strategies and then a small committee went over the strategies. They combined them to create one master strategy and presented it to the team.

Robot Design:

The second day was dedicated to robot design. Deciding on the design had the same system as game strategy, small groups created ideas and then a committee brought the ideas together in one plan for the team.

Prototyping:

The team has no moved into prototyping! We split into small groups to create a plan and prototype for a specific subsystem. Many teams have moved onto building and are beginning to find what will go onto our bot. The drivetrain is almost completely designed.

Field Elements:

While the students have been busy with the robot our wonderful mentors and parent volunteers have been building field elements for us to practice with.