They will eventually post the results from Mar 8 2020 on https://www.norcalftc.org hopefully.
Despite the fears of the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the country and globe, the event wasn't cancelled and went ahead at Independence High School in San Jose on March 7th and 8th 2020. We hustled hard on March 6th and 7th to get our robot Festivus working, and printed out the notebook and control award form at literally the last minute at 6:30 on Saturday. Went for judging at 7:30, which went well, but our notebook needs to be better with much more detail, especially CAD and 3D print design specs and discussions. We came back and practiced the teleop some more till midnight. The clock would spring ahead tonight as well, so hardly any sleep.
On March 8th, Sunday, we left home at 7:30 am and got there at 8am. Matches began at 9am. 56 (4 dropped out because of virus fears) of the top teams in Norcal compete, and are split randomly into two divisions: gold and silicon. We were in gold division. In each division, the teams play 5 matches with random matchups, and at the end of all the rounds where each team has played 5 matches, they are ranked and seeded. The top 4 advance to semifinals and can choose their alliance partners. The winning alliances of the divisions play each other for the championship.
Festivus
Our first match went very well and we scored 120 points, the highest we have ever scored. It was all mostly solo since our partner worked very well to deliver stones.
After a couple of matches, we found that we did not need a "third" dimension for the capstone as it could meet the requirement if placed diagonally in the sizing box. There was unanimous airing of grievances against the Festivus pole for hitting the bridge and messing up the autonomous in the first two matches. Hence, using only a screwdriver like David Bowman in 2001: A Space Odyssey, our coach and two team members pried off the 3d-print attached steel pole. After this, Festivus executed a perfect 3-stone with foundation move and park autonomous, proving that you don't necessarily need the pole for a happy Festivus.
RIP
Looks good on that stack though
At the end of 5 matches in our division, we were ranked 3d, which is the best finish ever for us in any tournament. That it was in a regional championship rather than just a local tournament was even better, since the competition is obviously stiffer with only the top teams there. We became the 3d seed alliance captain and played the semi-finals but unfortunately lost both matches. Our first match we lost 97-113; a match we could have won had our autonomous been a little more precise--it bumped up against another robot and messed up. Normally, we were capable of 50+ points in autonomous, but only got 24 in that match; the extra 26 would have made us the winner. In the second match, 3 of the 4 robots experienced a disconnect--where the phone on the robot suddenly loses connection with the expansion hub. When this happens, there is nothing we can do as we cannot go to the robot to reset it or twiddle the connection etc. Why this happens is a mystery, and a lot of teams suffer from it. We have to get much better connectors, and look into whether ESD is causing it. That it happened to 3 of the 4 robots in the middle of the game was really surprising, but 2 of the 3 were our alliance. So the only robot that lived was theirs and they got an easy win.
We also got 2nd runner up for the control award for the whole competition, meaning 3d best control system of the 52 teams there.
So all in all, I think it was a good show, and motivates us to do even better next season and be able to go to the world championship. We will continue to work on the software
to refine it, and also look into more robust build strategies and think of ways we can utilize much stronger 3D printed parts that we can work with Printerprezz on.
We also need to improve our path planning to be more precise and robust--be able to recover from obstacles that impede movement. All things to work on going forward.
An example of our perfect 3 stone autonomous with foundation move and park
