This Year's Game

FIRST distributes a new game for robotics teams to participate in each year. The game challenge for the 2012 FIRST Robotics season is called Rebound Rumble. Like most FIRST games, Rebound Rumble is played on a roughly tennis-sized field with two alliances of three robots each facing off to score the most points by manipulating game pieces and working as a team. The game is loosely based on a basketball theme, focusing on the hoop-shooting and agility aspects of the sport. To score points, robots can either toss miniature foam basketballs through an array of hoops stationed on each end of the field, or they can demonstrate their agility by balancing on see-saws in the center of the field. At the same time, robots must be careful not to break zoning rules or to get hold of too many balls as they drive around the field, much like the regulations on players' actions and ball-handling in the actual game of basketball.

Visit the FRC Youtube Channel for more information.

Our Robot

FIRST Team 2228 CougarTech has carefully defined its strategy this year to yield a simple, robust, and effective robot that can perform well in all parts of the game: hybrid mode, when the robot primarily moves under its own control; teleoperated mode, when drivers control the robot; and endgame, the last few seconds of the match when large scoring opportunities arise. In the hybrid and teleoperated modes, we aim to score balls by dumping three at a time straight into the mid-level, medium-point-value hoops at point-blank range. We use a system of rollers and cords to bring balls from the floor to our storage chamber, then fire a pair of pneumatic pistons to raise our dumper to the ideal height before we release the balls. In the endgame portion, we drive our robot onto a see-saw and engage a sophisticated balancing algorithm that assists drivers in finding the right place to position the robot in order to keep the see-saw level. By keeping our strategy straightforward, designing our mechanical systems simply, and allocating enough time for testing and practice, our team is a reliable enhancement to any alliance.

Our Design Process

As part of our efforts to become a more competitive team, 2228 has re-imagined its design process from FIRST principles to be more efficient and to mirror the processes used in the engineering industry. The process begins long before Kickoff, when a committee of our student leadership decides on our Team Goals and Robot Design Goals, which describe our grand-scale objectives for the year. This year we aim to continue to be a teaching team first and foremost; to pursue the Website, Safety and Chairman's Awards; and to be selected for the final rounds at both regional competitions we attend. For our robot, this year we decided before build season that we would try to perform well in all aspects of the game.

When kickoff finally arrives, we begin by brainstorming strategies on the bus ride home. Members contribute their wackiest ideas about how to play the game to a strategy brainstorm list. The team votes democratically to prioritize the strategies we pursue in each portion of the game. Then we break the chosen strategies down into their most basic behavioral details, e.g. degrees of freedom, range of motion, and maxima and minima. When it comes time to design the real robot, we have a solid theoretical basis for our design decisions. The team breaks into three or four focus groups called satellites that are responsible for designing the mechanical and electrical details of the robot. Satellites stay together until the whole robot has been arranged. Their efforts are coordinated by the Mothership, or systems engineering committee, which is composed of all of our sub-team leaders. The process mimics matrix management and system engineering strategies used by real-world businesses to create their products.