Sault robotics team wins silver in Waterloo (photos)

The following is a series of dispatches received by SooToday.com from the Knights of Alloy, the Algoma District School Board robotics team that won a silver medal today at the Waterloo FIRST Regional Robotics Competition.

************************* Wednesday, March 19 - 10 p.m.

Knights of Alloy Robotics Team arrives in Waterloo

The Algoma District School Board's competition robotics team, the Knights of Alloy, arrived in Waterloo, Ontario this afternoon, and is getting set to compete at the FIRST Robotics Waterloo Regional competition.

It was exactly a month ago that the team shipped its robot, Sir Jimmy, in a wooden shipping crate to the University of Waterloo, where it sits waiting for the team to open its crate. The team will arrive at UW’s PAC centre Thursday morning, uncrate Sir Jimmy, and will have the day to run practise rounds against 29 other robotics teams from Ontario, Alberta, BC and Michigan.

Friday will start the actual competition, opening with the round robin matches.

These matches will determine tournament standings for the championship rounds on Saturday.

At stake are competition gold medals, an engineering award and the chairman’s award – any one of which would also bring an invitation to the world championship event in Atlanta, Georgia.

This year’s game, entitled Overdrive, is a NASCAR-like race with teams of three vs. three robots racing around an oval track while manipulating a 40-inch diameter exercise ball.

Points are awarded for number of laps completed and the robot’s ability to push the ball over a 76-inch barrier while racing.

FIRST, or “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology," is a worldwide league of competitive robotics that is currently in its 15th year of operation and will see over 1,600 teams from 11 countries competing in 41 regional events this month.

FIRST also operates the FIRST Lego League competitions for elementary schools and the FIRST Tech Challenge for secondary schools.

All three leagues conclude their competitive seasons at the Atlanta World Championship Event in mid-April.

The Knights of Alloy, now in its sixth year of operation, built this year’s robot during a 44-day build session that involved about 3,000 student-hours of design and build time.

The 120-pound robot is 27 inches wide x 37 inches long and 56 inches tall.

It is the sixth robot built by this team, which operates out of the Korah Collegiate Tech department.

The team of 23 students from Korah and Sir James Dunn is attempting to earn its third trip to Atlanta in the past four years.

Information about the FIRST league and the current game events can be found at www.usfirst.org

The Knights of Alloy’s website is located at www.knightsofalloy.ca

************************* Friday, March 21. 9 p.m. WATERLOO, ON - March 21 - Day one of the two-day Waterloo FIRST Regional Robotics Competition concluded today with the Sault's robot ranked in the middle of the 30-robot field.

The team's first round was a repeat of yesterday's troubling performance as the machine refused to track in a straight line and was barely able to complete one lap of the 120-foot track.

A strong set of alliance opponent robots handed us an opening loss with our own team doing little to contribute to the attempt.

The pit crew went to work and team programmer Ian Graham was left with the daunting task of trying to figure out if the problem was a programming problem - the most likely suspect at that point.

Match two was only slightly better, with the drive team of Trever Menard and Aaron Dodds discovering that the robot was able to run straight but only in reverse.

Racing backwards, the robot managed three laps and was able to remove the ball off the rack as well.

Weaker opponents and a stronger alliance on our side gave us the team's first win, a 36-16 final score.

Match three was another win and the Sault’s machine was improving again, as the team’s second driver Mike Skinner stepped up and continued the backwards driving efforts.

Match four, just before lunch was a remarkable game to watch as only two out of the six robots in this round were able to even make it to the field - the other four machines had been damaged in previous rounds and were unable to run.

We faced off against a weak opponent in a one-on-one match and the bell sounded to start the game.

Ian Graham, operating the infra-red remote commands, initiated what was supposed to be a simple move forward using a standard TV remote, but the robot had other plans.

Sir Jimmy went into an uncontrolled spin, doing four full loops until it rolled over on its side and crashed.

The single lone opponent was off on its own, while our robot sat disabled.

When the final bell sounded the team realized that our own two balls still sat on the rack - a 24 point bonus since we were unable to move them and the opposing robot had forgotten to remove them.

We were looking at a 24-20 point victory, even though we had never moved an inch out of the gate.

Then the announcer called out, "and a 10-point penalty goes to team 1535."

We were stunned - in our 'death spiral manoeuvre and crash' the arm has crossed over the penalty line and sat on the wrong side of the penalty zone.

Our stunning win with a dead 'Bot suddenly became a loss, and we went into lunch with a two win-two loss record.

The pit crew continued all during the lunch break to try to solve the straight line drive problems and discovered the source of the error - an adjustment to the corner castor wheel yesterday had resulted in an incorrect height setting and had been causing most of the problems.

A quick correction and Sir Jimmy was sent out for more game rounds.

Further games went more smoothly as the robot began running straighter and with more control.

We hit five laps in the next round and began working the game ball as well and began scoring more points.

Two wins and two losses followed in the afternoon session.

By the end of the day, with eight of 11 game rounds complete, we are sitting with a 4 win-4 loss record and a seventeenth place ranking.

Action continues tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. and round robin matches end at 11:30.

The Knights of Alloy have three more matches before the championship rounds start at 1 p.m.

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