By Oliver Angert (Reporter ‘24)
Over the past seven months, the Friends’ Central robotics team, the Earthquakers, has been building our robot for the First Robotics Competition 2024 event, Crescendo. An overview of this year’s event is as follows: the goal of our robot is to pick up the foam rings that have been laid out on the ground or dispensed by our teammates at the source. The teammates come from the members of the alliance. Alliances are groups of three teams that all work together to gain points in each match. Whichever team scores the most points wins the match. For the first 15 seconds, the robots operate autonomously, controlled by pre-programmed code. After that, teleop mode begins, which is when the drivers use remote controls to maneuver the robots to pick up notes from the field and score points. The robot places the notes in the amplifier for two points in autonomous mode or for one point in teleop mode. The amp can be activated once two notes have been placed in it to give bonus points to the speaker, i.e., the second location for notes to be placed. Each note scored there is worth five points in autonomous mode and two points in teleop mode. If the amp is activated, each note scored in teleop becomes worth five points for ten seconds. In the last 20 seconds or so of the game, the teams race to climb the chains around the stage for bonus points. If one robot latches onto a chain, that is worth three points. If two robots latch onto the same chain, that is called harmonizing and is worth a bonus two points. The human player standing next to the amp can throw notes onto the poles above each chain on the stage. If they manage to land a note, each robot hanging from the corresponding chain gets a bonus point.
Now that this year’s season is over, I’ll give a quick overview of the events that we participated in. Our first official tournament meet was at Seneca Hills (March 10th-11th). There, we placed 14th in the qualifying matches and were chosen for the fifth alliance. Our alliance ended up finishing in fourth place. The next meet was at Springside Chestnut Hill (March 16th-17th) where we were the third ranked team in the qualifiers, the second alliance captain, and the fifth-place finishers. There were around 30 teams competing at each of these two meets. Our last meet was at Lehigh Valley (April 4th-6th), where there were 60 teams competing. At that meet, we were picked for the seventh alliance and the 30th qualifying team. We also finished sixth overall. This was my final season on the Earthquakers, and I’m glad it ended on such a high note. It’s been great building this robot with this team, and I absolutely encourage anyone who has even the slightest interest in metalworking, driving, woodworking, programming, marketing, or strategy to join. We’d be happy to have you.