What a day! We arrived at Assabet Valley RVTHS in Marlboro bright and early, not knowing what to expect at the unfamiliar location. It was a lot smaller than we had anticipated: only 24 teams were there out of a possible 40 teams and the Robot Game competition matches would be held right next to the pits.
However, the day did not start out well for us. Our robot specialists Jackson and Dennis were at the practice tables furiously trying to fix some flaws in our programs while the rest of us set up our pit area. In the first robot match, both our essential programs ran backwards for some unknown reason and we scored nothing. Our sister team, the Hippogriffs, actually scored the highest out of the 6 teams in the first round with 35 points. Our second match went a lot better with a score of 73 points. Unfortunately, we forgot to place the prosthesis on the pig after retrieving it, costing us 9 points, which was even more painful for us when we didn't score nearly as well in any of our other seed matches. In our third match, the EV3 firmware on our robot crashed right after the match began, forcing us to take another scoreless match. Things weren't looking too good when we took a break from Robot Game for our judging sessions.
However, the day did not start out well for us. Our robot specialists Jackson and Dennis were at the practice tables furiously trying to fix some flaws in our programs while the rest of us set up our pit area. In the first robot match, both our essential programs ran backwards for some unknown reason and we scored nothing. Our sister team, the Hippogriffs, actually scored the highest out of the 6 teams in the first round with 35 points. Our second match went a lot better with a score of 73 points. Unfortunately, we forgot to place the prosthesis on the pig after retrieving it, costing us 9 points, which was even more painful for us when we didn't score nearly as well in any of our other seed matches. In our third match, the EV3 firmware on our robot crashed right after the match began, forcing us to take another scoreless match. Things weren't looking too good when we took a break from Robot Game for our judging sessions.
After our unlucky first part of the day, judging went really well for us. We began with Robot Technical judging, where we showed off our attachments and programs. Next, we had Project judging, where we presented our water-powered floating fish feeder, the FISH or Feeding Instrument for Shad Habitats. Finally, we had Core Values judging, where we were given a teamwork challenge to solve and were asked questions about how we successfully work together as a team. Overall, we felt that the judges really liked everything we presented, even commenting that our Core Values solution was unique. Hopefully it was enough to balance out our poor Robot Game performance.
After judging, it was back to Robot Game. Jackson and Dennis continued to work on the programs to improve their performance, but it didn't work out in our final 3 robot matches. We managed to get decent scores but didn't surpass our score during our second round, placing us in 10th place and just within the qualifications for advancement to States. In our final round, we did get to use our manure launcher to fire manure into the Training and Research Area, but it didn't score us too many points. The Hippogriffs, in comparison, had very consistent scores, scoring at or very close to their maximum possible score of 42. We're glad that they managed to stay so consistent.
We had pizza for lunch, then went back to the practice tables to try to improve our programs before the elimination rounds began. We did really well in our first 2 elimination rounds, even surpassing the high score we had obtained during the seed rounds. The Hippogriffs also won their first elimination round, although they lost their second. Then, we lost our third round, but to the Lego Ninjas, who were a high-scoring team and earned the highest score in the entire qualifier during their match against us. The Lego Ninjas did go on to win the elimination rounds, earning themselves the Robot Performance award. We then cleaned up our pit area, hoping that everything we had done so far was enough to give us a golden ticket to States for our last year.
When it came time for the awards ceremony, we sat in suspense for the judges to announce the award winners. The Robot Performance award was presented. It wasn't us. The Core Values award was presented. It wasn't us. The Robot Design award was presented. It wasn't us. The Project award was presented. It wasn't us. By then, we had almost given up all hope of winning an award and going to states. However, there was one award left - the Champion's Award, given to the team who had excelled in all three aspects of FLL and was considered the overall winner of the qualifier. When the announcer began describing the team with, "This team had a very fishy project with a game show presentation," we could only sit in shock as we realized that he was talking about US! We rushed down with a loud cheer to get our award as the announcer declared "Team 5992, the Big Red Lightning Crocobots".
We were one out of 7 teams from Marlboro who advanced to States, which is a month away. We still have a lot of work to do to make sure that we're at a good position for States. Robot Game needs to be improved a lot to fix the problems we ran into at Marlboro, and our prototype FISH needs to be improved so that we can actually install it at the Fish Hatchery once we're finished with it. But first, we'll have a celebration party next Monday and take a well-deserved Thanksgiving break before we tackle the challenges before us.
Go Crocobots!
After judging, it was back to Robot Game. Jackson and Dennis continued to work on the programs to improve their performance, but it didn't work out in our final 3 robot matches. We managed to get decent scores but didn't surpass our score during our second round, placing us in 10th place and just within the qualifications for advancement to States. In our final round, we did get to use our manure launcher to fire manure into the Training and Research Area, but it didn't score us too many points. The Hippogriffs, in comparison, had very consistent scores, scoring at or very close to their maximum possible score of 42. We're glad that they managed to stay so consistent.
We had pizza for lunch, then went back to the practice tables to try to improve our programs before the elimination rounds began. We did really well in our first 2 elimination rounds, even surpassing the high score we had obtained during the seed rounds. The Hippogriffs also won their first elimination round, although they lost their second. Then, we lost our third round, but to the Lego Ninjas, who were a high-scoring team and earned the highest score in the entire qualifier during their match against us. The Lego Ninjas did go on to win the elimination rounds, earning themselves the Robot Performance award. We then cleaned up our pit area, hoping that everything we had done so far was enough to give us a golden ticket to States for our last year.
When it came time for the awards ceremony, we sat in suspense for the judges to announce the award winners. The Robot Performance award was presented. It wasn't us. The Core Values award was presented. It wasn't us. The Robot Design award was presented. It wasn't us. The Project award was presented. It wasn't us. By then, we had almost given up all hope of winning an award and going to states. However, there was one award left - the Champion's Award, given to the team who had excelled in all three aspects of FLL and was considered the overall winner of the qualifier. When the announcer began describing the team with, "This team had a very fishy project with a game show presentation," we could only sit in shock as we realized that he was talking about US! We rushed down with a loud cheer to get our award as the announcer declared "Team 5992, the Big Red Lightning Crocobots".
We were one out of 7 teams from Marlboro who advanced to States, which is a month away. We still have a lot of work to do to make sure that we're at a good position for States. Robot Game needs to be improved a lot to fix the problems we ran into at Marlboro, and our prototype FISH needs to be improved so that we can actually install it at the Fish Hatchery once we're finished with it. But first, we'll have a celebration party next Monday and take a well-deserved Thanksgiving break before we tackle the challenges before us.
Go Crocobots!