The Trip

We arrived Monday, April 20th on my birthday in hot San Francisco, prepared for cold weather mind you; luckily it cooled down a couple days later. Anyhow, after signing in, doing some sightseeing and a couple intense card games we got down to business because the competition was soon to start.

Mare Island, an old abandoned naval base (the “Mythbusters” have held some of their experiments here), is where the competition took place. All around people were preparing, tweaking their bots here and there, and just buzzing with excitement. Camera crews were there to document the event which was to premier on a show somewhere around November. Although most of the coverage went to the 120 and 220 pound robots they definitely captured the spirit of the whole event. It was kids ranging from all ages exhibiting their skills in an exciting way.

Now, onto the actual competitions.

The task oriented completion in which our Bat Bot competed was not the most exciting of the events but the main idea was to show us the principle skills of robotics. The teams competed with driver controlling the robot with a remote, a coach who told the driver what to do and, a human player who could pick up and load ping pong balls onto the robot, and shoot any available balls into the basket at the last ten seconds of the match. I was the driver for my team, and let me tell you it is stressful because you might have a real top notch robot, but if you can’t drive it the robot is useless.

The crowd favorite seemed to be Rolie Polie Olie team because it was a really cute robot even though wasn’t the most effective one. It looked like an upside down metal bowl painted yellow with red arms that would essentially hug the ping pong balls and then bring them to the human players. If you’ve ever seen the cartoon from Playhouse Disney, let me tell you this robot was a splitting image.

Next comes the 15 pound battles. The main robots seen here are wedges, plows, drums, saws, and spinners. Wedges and plows work in the same way in that they have a piece of the robot that is flat to the ground that can get under other robots and flip them over. Drums and saws are attached weapons that spin at high velocity; they can move vertically or horizontally and create internal damage to robots as well as flipping them very high into the air in some cases with the vertical ones. Lastly, spinning robots are like metal spinning cakes with spikes and other accessories that spin at high speeds and send robots flying all over the place. Robots with hammers are not seen often because they are not very efficient.

The 120 and 220 pound matches were held in the same arena equipped with immense hammers on each corner that make deafening booms when they hit the ground. Also saws pop up at different of the arena floor and revolving saws lie on each side of the arena. These matches were the most watched and most fascinating and for good reason. The best match was a pink spinner against a wedge. The team Fuchsia Fusion, a senior team from my school, tore apart the wedge in two seconds flat. Boom! One panel flew off and hit the opposite wall. Boom! There went another. By the time the opposing team tapped out all that was left was the metal frame and the wires. It’s easy to say they were annihilated, and not to mention the team that was beat was a huge all guy team that lost to a three girl team.

The Results

We came in fourth place nationally in our division and came in second for documentation a seemingly small but huge part of the competition. We received an award that was made up of a broken saw piece and to my team seemed beautiful in all its grunginess. My school also placed first and second in my division and ranked highly in others. All in all, the reputation of my school was maintained and we had fun so the trip was a success as was the experience.