Meet 0
Date: 11/10/18
Week #: 9 Meet-0
Quick Summary:
- We got first place!
- We learned that we can’t latch onto the lander until the last 30 seconds of the game.
- We found out the hard way that a battery with a low charge will cause a slow response time.
What We Accomplished: We had our practice competition today! When we first arrived, we helped to set up the field. Then we went through robot inspection and field inspection, and we passed both. Our first match was with the MantArrays (15497). In the Autonomous, we unhooked and lowered successfully, dropped our team marker in our depot, and backed up. However, we did not lower our lift like we were supposed to because the top holder for the gear rack came off the track and would not go back on. Because of this, we could not get any minerals in the lander because the lift interfered with our arm. We also could not latch. So we learned an important lesson: when we hang our robot on the lander before the match starts, the lift needs to be as far down as possible, otherwise it will go too high and mess up everything. Our second match was better. We were paired up with the Polyisoprene Mallards (13171) and our Autonomous period went well. The only thing that went wrong was that after Snazzy had dumped our marker in the depot, we tried to back up to the crater and break the plane to get points, but we ran into the lander leg. We dumped two silver minerals and one gold. We latched onto the lander and raised ourselves off the ground. Our alliance won that match. For our third match, we were paired up with Wolf Corp (12525). The Autonomous period went exactly as our last match: we unlatched, we deposited our team marker, and we ran into the lander leg. We only put in one silver mineral because we were struggling with picking up minerals off the ground. But we latched and lifted ourselves up. Our alliance won this match. We were paired up with the STEAMpunks Alpha (9040) for our fourth match. Our Autonomous period went perfect and we put in two of each kind of minerals, and we also latched. Our alliance won this match. For our fifth and final match, we were paired up with the Robo Panthers (14377). The Autonomous part was absolutely perfect, and we actually ended in the crater! For the rest of the match, we put in three silver minerals, helped out our partner, and latched onto the lander. In the middle of the match, our partner’s robot just stopped, and wouldn’t go anymore. So before latching, Snazzy pushed them into the crater so that they got some points. Our alliance won this match, and it was quite an adventure! At the end of the competition, our team was in first place! We are very excited, but realize that this is just a practice competition.
What We Learned at Meet-0: We discovered that our robot cannot start latching onto the lander until the last 30 seconds of the match. If we do, it doesn’t count. We cannot make any hardware changes after our robot inspection. We can fix our robot and make adjustments, but we can’t add anything to our robot after inspection. Because of how our matches went with the other robots, we decided that it’s best to have a strong, protected base on our robot so that it will not get harmed and it can help other robots by moving them. We’re glad that we had this. A battery without a full charge might result in a significantly increased response time and constant disconnect in the app. We experienced this during our field inspection, so we changed the battery and had no more problems with it. The apps on the phones need to be the latest version. We learned this during our field inspection, so we need to do that before Meet-1. We need to completely charge all the batteries before the competitions, not just one. People loved Snazzy and its license plate.