| Wednesday, July 11 to Friday, July 13, 2007 |
Honolulu, Hawaii
| Our Post sent
three teams to the
2007 National Conference on Educational Robotics which included the
2007 International Botball Tournament and Beyond Botball Tournament.
We over came some great difficulties and competed with dignity. Our biggest problem was half our team was stranded in Denver by an unconcerned United Airlines. They missed the seeding rounds. The robots made it to Honolulu and the part of the team that was there put up a good show. But the seeding rounds were no where near our potential. Here are the seeding results. We did better in the competition rounds, but never got things working as they did back in Gaithersburg. Here are the final standings. A big thanks to Karen Carlson, John Heithaus, and Chris Wikman as the adult support team. Here are some videos around the conference and around Hawaii. |
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Lessons for Next Year
- While Team 130's House bot was consistent in the competition, the other three bots were not.
- We did OK with our code control this year, but we can do better, especially informing everyone on the team.
- Not everyone on the team could run the bots. We could have used more cross training.
- We may want to try adaptive code so we can adjust the bots behavior at the table.
- We discovered that we can change the XBC libraries to get different results.
- We could use better design and structural integrity. We may want to try modular bot elements. We may want to develop some new drive methods early on.
- We need to restrict the team's access to the Internet and computer games during work sessions.
- We could use more sensors to improve bot accuracy.
- We had some problems with the white motor axels.
- We had problems with the XBCs. They seemed fragile after many tests and failed in strange ways.
- Attendance was very good at the work session during June. Communications and teamwork were very positive.
- We need to standardize starting positions.
- The most important thing we did to lead to success was we had bots on the table and in testing before half the development time had past. The message is work hard early.
At the conference this year, there were several papers and presentations that might help next year. They are posted here. Perhaps next year we will submit some papers and do presentations based on our experiences.
Team 129 Competition Rounds
| Round | Score | Video | Comments |
| Competition 1 | Loss | Video | House bot didn't start, blocked Water bot |
| Competition 2 | Win | Video | Water bot missed one ball and got stuck, House bot was blocked |
| Competition 3 | Win | Video | Water bot missed one ball but House bot got one house back |
| Competition 4 | Loss | Video | Water bot got both balls in, but House bot missed two houses again |
Team 130 Competition Rounds
| Round | Score | Video | Comments |
| Competition 1 | Win | Video | Water didn't drop, but flap worked, House worked great with one leaf in bin |
| Competition 2 | Loss | Video | Water bot didn't grab the balls, flap worked, but House bot crashed |
| Competition 3 | Win | Video | Water bot didn't grab the balls, flap worked, House bot worked great |
| Competition 4 | Loss | Video | Water bot missed again, but flap worked, House bot was blocked by other team |
Pictures
Arriving |
In the pit |
Presentation |
Dinner |
At the beach |
Hawaii is different than Gaithersburg |
Beyond Botball
| Our Beyond team had a
little better luck than the Botball team. The contest organizers
allowed the team to conduct the seeding rounds late on the first day.
Good thing, because they won the seeding contest with an average score
of 43.5 points. Here are the
results. In the competition rounds, we lost the final round to a team we beat last year in the finals. It was a "titanic battle" against the "Fishtank Assassins" from Southern Illinois University. We got a great video of the battle thanks to Kevin. Next year should be interesting. See the video of activities around the Beyond competition. Here is a video of everything working correctly. Here is the code for the Graber Bot. |
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Lessons
- We need to spend more time on competition strategies and understanding the details of the point process.
- Beyond Botball was a good challenge for recent graduated seniors.
- Don't let Bob touch the bots when they are placed on the table.
- Plan your children to be born after the competition.
| Round | Score | Video | Comments |
| Seed 1 | 48 | no video | One of our best rounds |
| Seed 2 | 39 | Video (35MB) | Missed one Botguy |
| Seed 1 | 28 | no video | Good round, but we missed some objects and left the wrong balls in the reactor |
| Competition 1 | Loss | Video (14MB) | One of the primary servos became unconnected |
| Competition 2 | Win | no video | The noose servo was still unconnected, but we won the round (lucky!) |
| Competition 3 | Win | Video (37MB) | Nice run, lost one Botguy to the other team |
| Competition 4 | Win | Video (30MB) | Nice run, missed one Botguy and removed one from the safe zone |
| Competition 5 | Loss | Video (47MB) | Almost won the round |
Beyond Pictures
Beyond tables |
Getting ready |
Attack |
All the balls |
Botguy meeting |
The "Battle" |
Finalists |
First Place Overall |