February of 2019, I had the opportunity to participate as an FTC (First Tech Challange) coach. FTC is a high-school robotics competition that encourages students to explore engineering concepts while building robots. The FTC theme changes per season. This year’s theme was space exploration called “Robot Ruckus”. While students earn points via driving robots, they are also rewarded by exploring other avenues such as video production, budgeting, team management, documenting the build process, team spirit and professionalism. Teams are also encouraged to get to know each other. The competition took place in the Science museum located in Kaohsiung, which is the largest southern city of Taiwan.
Competition summary:
There are 2 alliances Red/Blue each with 2 robots/teams. Robots will start on a lander, they then complete tasks for thirty seconds autonomously. After which 2 drivers take control and try to score points by depositing minerals for the remaining minute and a half. The minerals are gold cubes(gold) and whiffle balls (silver). Teams will then latch back onto the lander before time expires.
Teams can score points via completing the following.
Autonomous:
- Lowering from lander. 30pts per robot. Max 60.
- Detecting and interacting with a gold cube via computer vision. 25pts
- Navigating to a corner (depot) location and placing a flag or relic. 15pts per robot. Max 30pts.
- Navigating to a standby position. 10pts per robot. Max 20pts
Driver stage:
- Each correctly deposited mineral in the lander scores the team five points.
- Each Mineral placed in a depot is worth 2 points.
End Game:
- Robots latch and raise onto the lander. 50pts per robot. Max 100pts.
- Or fully or partially parked in a crater. 30pts or 25 points per robot.
Conclusion:
Both of our teams “Builders” and “Breakers” did well. The team known as “Builders” was the team I worked mostly with. To my surprise they managed to win in scored points. But they heavily lacked in the other aspects of the competition. Thus, they did not take the overall win. I look forward to participating again, and will encourage my teams to win overall and not just by points.
