The Cisco Qualifier was our 2nd qualifier for the 2017-2018 season. At this qualifier, we had the opportunity to test our newly built robot. Immediately after our first qualifier, we discussed new design ideas for our robot as a whole, and we decided to completely rebuild our robot. Our new robot is comprised of a compliant wheel intake, a flipper mechanism, and a four-bar lift. We believed this new robot would allow us to intake glyphs more quickly and accurately. Also, because of our flipper, we would be able to save time from not having to rotate our robot 180 degrees to place the glyphs into the cryptobox. Finishing our new robot two weeks before the competition, we had ample time to test the intake, flipper, and lift. Also, the drivers had extensive practice working together to intake the glyphs and place them into the crypto boxes.
At the competition, we were able to complete a cryptobox during each match. Most of the time we were also able to complete a cipher, too. We had a few issues with the ciphers, as we weren’t used to the flipped orientation when inserting cubes. We hope to continue driver practice in order to eliminate this minor issue. Our autonomous code was mostly successful as well. We had a few issues with our PID code, but we were able to score 85 points during autonomous by the end of the matches.
We went undefeated during the preliminary matches, placing us in first for the alliance selection. We chose team 6165 M-Set Cuttlefish as our alliance partner. Together, we won all of our semifinal and final matches. During our last match, our alliance was able to score 404 points!
Overall, this qualifier was a success for our team and our robot. We were able to practice our judging presentation, drive our new robot, talk to rookie teams, and watch other teams perform.
All of our awards and nominations:
Our new robot only has a mechanism for intaking glyphs and placing them into crypto boxes. Since we did not have time to build a relic mechanism, our focus during matches was to complete a cipher. During autonomous our goal was to score 85 points by sensing the jewel and knocking off the correct one, driving near the cryptobox and placing the glyph in the correct spot, and parking in the same zone.