GHS robotics team
competing this week at national competition
April 16, 2004
Greenville Herald Banner
Imagine one spring
Wednesday afternoon, putting a football team on a bus. When
that team returns home on Saturday night, they have played their
entire season of games. Their opponents are unknown, their
competition times are undetermined and if the quarterback is
injured, there isn't anyway to substitute a player. If you can
even imagine this scenario, then you have only begun to realize what
it takes for the Greenville High School robotics team to compete at
a regional competition. National competition is the scenario
times ten and it is a Herculean task faced by Team 148 every year.
The Lone Star
Regional held April 1 - 3 at Reliant Arena in Houston, Texas is not
a state competition, but is held for teams all across the nation.
In the FIRST program, teams can choose where they compete during a
six weeks regional competition calendar. This is the only
choice in the process; everything else is determined by computer
selection and machine ability.
Once a robot is
built, it is shipped away and the team must uncrate their creation,
put it back together and be ready for the practice rounds.
Although the team had six weeks to create the robot, it has not been
touched since it was crated and send to the competition site.
Electronics must be established, gears be adjusted, and drivers
reacquainted with the controls. If the machine is not ready by
practice time, then the team loses any opportunity to get a test
drive in before competition starts.
FIRST is designed for
students to understand how classroom concepts take them to the real
world. Reality sets in as competition begins. Using a
system of alliances and opponents, teams are paired by computers.
The team never knows what its ally can accomplish or its opponents
achieve until they are in a round together. It is the luck of
the draw during seeding matches, sometimes your ally is a perfect
match and rounds go smoothly. Other times, your ally is an
incomplete machine or one with mechanical problems and you must take
on the competition alone. Without a functioning ally, your
machine is in a situation of two against one.
To achieve a seeding
rank that enables you to move into the quarter - finals, a team has
to be one of the top eight teams or be chosen as an ally with one of
the top eight teams. While some team members have been busy
driving the robot, other team members have spent the last 24 hours,
scouting and finding just the perfect match for the robot.
Placing in the top eight gives you control of your destiny in the
competition.
Once the final eight
allies are made, the slate is cleared and a new competition begins.
In double elimination tournaments the teams work to move from
quarter finals to semi-finals to the final match. Earning the
right, means eliminating your opponents. If at any time your
machine or the machine of your ally fails, you are finished.
You have to keep this 140 pound machine moving and completing some
very difficult task.
When it comes down to
the final match, once again, the scores are cleared and it is the
best two out of three matches. Those two teams in the final
rounds take their two allies with them to the medal round and will
be either deemed the Championship team or the Finalist team.
No No other team medals or placements are awarded but for those two
teams.
Now, hopefully by
reading this scenario you have some understanding of what the GHS
Robotics team must face when competing. I have seen shirts
that say, "Second place is the first loser". However, in FIRST
second place is another winner!
We attend national
competition in April 14 - April 18. We go from facing 44 teams
to facing 450 teams. First we will have to be successful
through our division of about 85 teams and then if we "win" the
division, we move into the finals.
This article was
contributed by Vanessa Pope.
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