Geared Up, Ready to Lift
Robotics Team Ready To
Head to Annapolis Competition
By Roxy Sweeney (March 10, 2007)
A
week and a half ago the Robotics Team tightened the last
couple of bolts on its “donut/robot-lifting
machine” and sent it off for the 2007 FIRST Robotics Competition,
which will be held at the Annapolis Naval Academy in Annapolis,
Maryland, March 15 through the 17. The team has been slaving
for hours on end on the robot since early January and the
road was difficult.
|
“We’ve worked every day for 6-7 weeks now. Normally
from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on
weekends, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. on
weekdays, and we had two days where we worked for 14 hours,” said
Mr. Ballou, the team’s sponsor and coach. “We have had a different
plan and this year we are much further along as a team and we
are ready to play the game.”
This year’s robot was designed to
be able to grab a large “donut” and place it on a rack with three
varying heights so that each team is trying to get more than
two donuts in a row. The trick is that the only way a team scores
for a donut is if it places the donut on the rack without hitting
a trip wire, and, of course, if another team doesn’t remove the
opponent’s donut. The robot is also equipped with a sophisticated
lifting system which allows the team to hoist up other team’s
robots to score from 15 to 30 points. Overall, the hours that
the team spent on the robot have been well spent.
|
|
Where
should I place this donut? This is the robot that the Mason
Robotics Team is counting on in the upcoming FIRST Robotics
Competition next weekend in Annapolis. (Photo by Roxanne Sweeney)
|
The “senior-studded” team
is partially composed of John Ehrenzeller, Rachel Taylor, David Maher,
Kelly Casteel, and Hunter Burkey. The robot will be maneuvered by the
rest of the team with Sebastian Forester as the arm operator, Alex
Petersen as the human aid, Fritz Langford as the main strategist for
the event, and Eliot Walker as the driver.
Competition for Robotics Team has always
been the goal for the team and they have been successful enough each
year to continue to compete against other, larger programs and still
be a top competitor.
“Competition last year was pure chaos,
we expect this year to go a bit more smoothly because last year was
full of last-minute decisions,” commented Forester. The FIRST Competition
is said to be very chaotic and very spontaneous, at any minute a screw
could come loose or as Maher fears, “another robot could fall on our
robot and destroy it.” Unlikely, but still the stress levels are high
and the team is more than anxious to get to Annapolis,
make their last repairs and adjustments and gear off for competition.
