GOING FOR THE GOLD

We competed against 39 teams and our 494 students took first place in the Ann Arbor FIRST Robotics Competition along with our Alliance Partners, Team 66 "Flyers" and Team 2337 "EngiNERDS"!  We are now off to the State Competition in two weeks. Thanks to Daniel Ernst for making his team alliance photos available for compositing the Martians with our winning banner to the right:




Unfortunately, we did not win the prestigious Chairman's Award, which went to our protoge' team from Grand Blanc, the "EngiNERDS", but the students gained valuable experience for next year's entry.  Congratulations to all the students on their accomplishments!  We are now off to the State Competition in two weeks.

CHAIRMANS AWARD VIDEO PEAK

Both teams are gearing up for the Ann Arbor Michigan FIRST Robotics District Competition.  We have prepared this video as part of our 2011 Chairman's Award submission that will be judged on Friday and Saturday this weekend. Make sure your speakers at turned up as this is recorded in stereo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biqZGt5uhM0

Enjoy...

NASA UPDATE FROM ISS AND ROBONAUT

Expedition 27 Flight Engineers Cady Coleman and Paolo Nespoli unpack the newest member of their crew, Robonaut 2, the first humanoid robot in space, and find a comical surprise in the NASA video below!



The audio begins at the 30 second mark...

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=72887671

KETTERING UNIVERSITY DISTRICT EVENT

The Kettering District event was an exciting time for the Goodrich teams. Team 70 was superb with their unparalleled use of maneuvering skills in attempting to capture a third title as District Champion, but were eliminated in the Semi-finals by a slim margin. Team 494 made the Finals, but unfortunately was defeated by a strong veteran showing on the opposing red alliance. 

Both teams demonstrated an outstanding performance and can be proud of their accomplishments. We took home two trophies, one for being a "District Finalist" and one for capturing the "Image Award" in designing a feminine twin to the Martian logo - the gals shirts for Team 494 have a lady martian sporting lipstick and eyelashes! 

You can see a 2 minute video of the final match play at the following link.  Team 494 is the blue robot in the lower left side of the screen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTSPYLCB2vY&feature=player_embedded



Enjoy...

PRACTICE DAY

Just a few hours ago, we put the finishing touches on the Kettering event, including assembly of spectator stands, projection screens and blue skirting around the field.

The floor was marked with colored tape and the field was powered up so robot teams could have a short practice session.


                                                                 We were only able to get about 10 minutes of practice time on the field tonight, so we expect to learn alot during the first match this morning - not an optimal condition, but workable. Very few teams were able to get on the field for any practice time, so we were fortunate and wisely used the time to do some trial runs on hanging the Ubertubes on the pegs after retreiving them from the field.

Since the pits opened at 6PM, the first order of business, of course, was to unload our robots and equipment for both our teams and install the batteries and miscellaneous hardware.

 
Another responsibility for some students is to become 'scouts' for the team.  This entails walking around to other pits and speaking with teams about their robot and asking specific questions that might help our team make decisions about who to pair up with if we should make it to the final rounds on Saturday afternoon. 
                                                                              




This is a key role in strategy for the game and a very imporatant task for the team to execute with Gracious Professionalism - the mantra of every FIRST team member!

Of course, on the occasional down time, in the appropriate setting we do allow for some rest and relaxation to make sure each student is enjoying the experience and making new friends!


But only the students know what the meaning of placing one's finger upon one's nose is meant to signify! Perhaps it is a secret martian team code??  :-)

As we began to see the teams slowly filter into the area and set up their own pits, we are seeing some interesting designs.  It is amazing to see the creativity and diversity of robot designs, anywhere from scissors mechanisms to pneumatic actuators.  This weekend we will definitely see how they fare against each other and if there is a design that becomes dominant.

KETTERING EVENT - FIELD CONSTRUCTION

Today and most of this evening was spent at Kettering University constructing and assembling the playing field and practice areas in preparation for the first competition this weekend.

 

 

Both our teams sponsor the Kettering event, so we are responsible for many administrative duties as well as orchestrating and overseeing the field construction.

The first order of business was laying the floor tiles that will support the running robots on the field.  The above photos show the beginning and the ending of todays construction of the playing field.

In the video below, you can see that some of the team members were put to work on pumping up the six hundred inner tubes for the competition! Now THAT was work! 

Others also helped out with the floor wiring and carpet taping.

We did take a welcome break for dinner - pizza and sodas with an assortment of Pepperidge Farms crackers!

Following dinner, the final touches were added to the field, such as the lighted poles that the minibots will climb for additional scoring points.

                                          And, of course, more ubertubes!!