237 in 2004
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Accomplishments
This is how 237 did in 2004.
New Jersey Regional
The Watertown High School Sie-H2O-Bots have done it again! This time they not only raised the bar but also went gliding across it. The F.I.R.S.T. Team 237 competed in the Johnson and Johnson Mid-Atlantic Regional Competition At the Sovereign Bank Arena in Trenton, NJ from 3/4/04 - 3/6/04. Forty-seven teams including two teams from Brazil competed in the event.
The T.R.I.B.E. team got off to a rocky start after waking in the wee hours of the night to leave at 4:30 AM on 3/4/04. Due to a breakdown of the driver's car on the way to his bus, they were unable to leave until 6:30 am. The optimistic group chose to think that only better things were to come. And, they did!
Thursday, after arriving in Trenton, was spent going through weigh in and inspection along with practice rounds in the afternoon. The robot just made the legal weight limit of 130 pounds. Inspection required the team to improvise new numbers for the robot and they were very creative -- adapting letters from their bulletin board into the numbers 237.
Friday began with opening ceremonies and followed with a schedule that included 6 of 8 qualifying matches for each team. The Sie-H2O-Bots robot was programmed for 15 seconds of autonomous movement at the start of each game. Andrey Sklyar did much of this programming under the mentoring of Sean Conway. The 237 robot drivers Scott Shaw (sophomore) and Ted (Edward) Boucher (freshman) did an excellent job with assistance from one of the human players, Rich Daddona, Annette Trayer, and Joe Giedra, who played in various matches. WHS graduate volunteer Sara Milton and local mechanical engineers Gary Santoro and Kurt Eckert did the coaching. By Friday evening, the team had won all six of the scheduled matches.
Saturday, Scott and Ted, under great pressure, and the human player continued to win the last two qualifying matches. Scott Shaw repeatedly managed to drive the robot to the top of the stepped platforms; while Ted Boucher raised the arm and, working with Scott, hooked the bar. After a short pause, while the air compressor recharged, Ted would control raising the robot off the platform and move it from side to side, as needed, to defend the bar and block other robots. The Sie-H2O-Bots were in first place.
8 matches -- 8 wins. Incredible! There were four regional F.I.R.S.T. competitions played across the country that first week of competition and only one team, Watertown's Team 237, had won all of their qualifying matches.
By noon, it was clear that the Team 237 robot was a strong, well designed and constructed robot that stood up to the 2004 F.I.R.S.T. Frenzy game. This is the first time in their six years of participation in the robot competitions that the team had no major repairs to do in the pit between matches. During the qualifying matches other team members had been scouting other teams for their strengths and possible compatibility with their hometown team robot. This information is helpful in choosing two other teams to complete a successful alliance in the finals. They did a great job and the proof of that showed in the outcome of the NJ Regional.
After a short break, each of the eight top ranking teams chose two additional teams to form their alliance. The Sie-H2O-Bots chose Team 56 -- Robbe Xtreme from Bound Brook High School in Bound Brook, New Jersey and Team 303 -- Panther Robotics from Bridgewater-Raritan High School and Midland School in North Branch, New Jersey. The Watertown team is not new to one of these NJ teams. Several years ago, when the Bound Brook team got flooded out, the Watertown Robotics Team took up a collection and sent a donation to the NJ team.
The quarterfinals started with a loss in the first of two out of three matches for the 237 team and their alliance. The pressure was on. The teams worked well together to win the next two matches and moved on to the semifinals. The opposing teams were out to stop the Watertown team. In one match, the 237 robot tipped over backward into one of the stationary goals. From the remote control panel, Ted and Scott managed to right the robot, have it climb the second platform and hang from the bar and then, raise the robot off the platform. With human players shooting balls into the goals and the alliance robot scoring extra points by placing the 34-inch multiplier ball on top of the goal, they won the match.
In the semifinal rounds and the final matches, the 237 alliance teams won both matches with Team 56 and Team 303 each playing one match with at each level of the playoffs with Team 237. Under the tension to hold their winning streak, the Watertown drivers and human player, who scored points for each ball thrown into either of their two goals, played well consistently. They were gracious and professional, focused and intentional. These drivers did an awesome job!
Gracious professionalism is a theme that F.I.R.S.T. promotes and this philosophy seen in many ways around competitions. Parts needed for repairs are given to other teams as soon as a request is made and another team has the extra part. Team 237 gave several needed parts away. Should they need a part, they know that it would be there for them. Help is also given in other ways. Team 237 student Andrey Sklyar helped another team with programming for their autonomous mode. Ideas are freely shared on how to get support and raise the funds needed to continue this educational program. Kurt Eckert, mechanical mentor for Team 237, volunteered at the NJ Regional as a welder for any teams who might need this service in the competition shop.
One of the reasons the T.R.I.B.E. robot performed so well was due to their unique ability to shimmy across the ten-foot high bar. It allowed the team to defend the bar and keep others from hanging on the bar. The accomplishment of attaching to the bar and lifting the robot off the platform scored 50 points for any team who did so. This idea of the shimmy mechanism was the brainchild of graduate mentor Steve Mikush. The idea was developed and manufactured by the team utilizing a serpentine timing belt driven by a globe motor installed on top of the forked hand, which hooks the robot to the bar. The team was awarded the General Motors Industrial Design Award for this unique feature.
- Seeded 1st out of 47 teams
- Regional Champion
- General Motors Industrial Design Award
UTC Regional
The T.R.I.B.E. team had a good showing at their second regional of the 2004 season. Making sure to go into the competition confident in their robot and design, the team had a good day on Thursday, which is a practice day, testing out their robot and making sure all the systems worked. The qualifying rounds started Friday morning and went throughout the day on Friday. The team lost 3 of the first 4 rounds they played, being flipped over in the first round and their alliance partners being disqualifyed in the other two losing rounds. At noon on Friday, the team was ranked 28th of the 38 team at the regional. In a great showing, the team won their next two rounds and by the end of the day Friday, they were ranked 20th at the regional. The first half of the day on Saturday finished the qualifying rounds and the team knew that if they won all three of their scheduled rounds for the day, they would break into the top ten. The team tried their hardest and they ended up being 6th ranked overall by the end of the competition! What a great run for the Sie-H20-Bots to go from being ranked 28th at noon on Friday to being ranked 6th at noon on Saturday. The team picked teams 175, Buzz Robotics and team 228, Gus Robotics to partner with them for the finals rounds. The teams were knocked out in the quarter finals after a hard battle. Team 237 went on to win the Motorola Quality Award for excellence in the engineering of the robot.
- Seeded 6th out of 38 teams
- Eliminated in the quarterfinals
- Motorola Quality Award
National Championship
The Watertown Sie-H2O-Bots played their best ever at the F.I.R.S.T. National Competition in Atlanta, Georgia from 4/15/04 - 4/17/04. Drivers Ted Boucher and Scott Shaw were incredible in their skills whether driving offensively or defensively. Rich Daddona and Annette Trayer, who shared the position of human player for various matches, assisted them. They had near perfect accuracy in shooting goal points.
The team fabricated a hood for the forked shimmy mechanism allowing better defense of the bar and preventing other teams from scoring by hooking on top of the Watertown teams arm mechanism. The T.R.I.B.E. team was nicknamed the "monkey" by the Archimedes field MC for their amazing ability to grasp the bar and climb.
The Watertown 237 Team won five of their seven qualifying matches. The team lost one match when the robot was accidentally tipped over and the second loss occurred in a well-played match with a scored of 105 to 110. The Sie-H2O-Bots ended Saturdays qualifying matches in 11th place of the 73 teams in the Archimedes division. The T.R.I.B.E. team moved into the eighth seed position and chose Team 121, the Rhode Warriors from Rhode Island , and Team 386, Voltage from Florida.
The Watertown Team began the quarterfinals with their 8th seeded alliance upsetting the 1st seeded alliance by winning both matches with scores of 120 to 95 and 85 to 75. They moved into the semi-finals playing against the 5th seeded alliance lead by captain Team Hammond, #71 from Hammond, Indiana and their robot which was nicknamed "The Beast".
In the first match of the semi-finals, Team 71 was hanging on top of the Watertown robot and the 50 points for hanging were not counted for the Indiana Team when judges determined that the robot would not be on the bar if the 237 robot was removed. Match score was 85 to 50 for the Team 237 alliance. In the second match of the semi-finals the Watertown team suffered a setback when a set screw on the shimmy mechanism became loose and prevented the mechanism from functioning. They lost the match 85/140. The Sie-H2O-Bots lost the third match in the semifinals to the number 5 seeded alliance.
Winning the quarterfinals over the number 1 seeded alliance was a real feat for the Watertown Robotics Team and they played hard in the semi-finals. This is farther than the team has ever gone at the National Competition.
The following semi-finals match was played by the Team 716 (Who'ctecks) and Team 45 (Technokats) alliance against Team 571 (Paragon) and Team 330 (Beach Bots). Team 330 was knocked over by 716 while they were defending the platform. The match score of 230 to 20 was the highest score for the competition won by the Team 716 alliance lead by students from Housatonic Valley Regional High School from CT. This team got their start after a demonstration by the Watertown Sie-H2O-Bots. The Who'ctecks went on to play in the finals and lost their last match after a well-played match with a score of 105/120 to the Indiana based alliance lead by Team Hammond #71 and "The Beast".
The Archimedes Division Championship alliance went on to play against the three other division alliance team winners. The Archimedes winning alliance won in the playoff matches and became the new F.I.R.S.T. National Champions.
The Watertown Team 237 had played and beat this alliance team in their first semifinal match, which goes to show how close the robots and their drive teams were in quality and ability. The drivers and human players did an incredible job under the direction of coach Sara Milton. The Watertown Sie-H2O-Bots designed and built a tough, high performance, well programmed machine and a skilled drive team. They can be very proud of the accomplishments in the 2004 season and thank the many volunteers and mentors who serve hundreds of hours to work with them making this program possible.
- Seeded 11th out of 73 teams (Archimedes Division)
- Eliminated in the semi-finals (Archimedes Division)
