First Robotics Team

First Tech Challenge Description

The First Tech Challenge, or FTC, is a nationwide robotics competition. High school students are given three months and an almost unlimited list of materials to construct a robot which fits in an 18 inch cube and plays a specific game. A video describing this year’s game can be seen here. Robots successful in their regionals’ competitions will advance to State, Super Regionals, and then Worlds. Individuals as well as teams can receive awards. Students who have demonstrated technical expertise, commitment to the FIRST community, and the ability to lead teammates can be selected as a Dean’s list semi-finalist, finalist, or winner. FTC has become a passion of mine due to its fun yet difficult challenges and great community.

Technical Work

2015 / 16

• I wrote PID libraries that use rotation information from the BNO055 IMU to allow the robot to make precise turns with an accuracy of 2 degrees and move straight very precisely. These libraries were used in our robot’s autonomous program, which scored more points than any other at the State competition. My code is available in our team’s Github repository.
• I worked with two teammates to write code for the driver-controlled period of each match.
• I was selected to be the robot’s lead driver during competitions.
• A teammate and I built a mechanism that allowed our robot to hang from a ‘pull up’ bar. I also helped design our robot’s tread profiles and spent time testing the drive train.

2014 / 15

• To allow for precise turning and movement, my mentor, Gabe Cronin, and I built an IMU and wrote protocols which allow it to communicate with the NXT brick. The Gyroscope, Accelerometer, and Magnetometer data are incorporated using a Kalman filter and sent to the NXT using the I2C industry standard.
• I built our team’s telescoping arm which uses drawer slides to lift balls high into the air and deploy them in tall tubes.
• Teammates and I collaborated to build our robot’s ball collector, which collects the balls which are then scored into tubes.
• I wrote all the code for both the autonomous and driver-controller periods.

Recognition

2015 / 16

• Our robot was a finalist at Regionals and won the Inspire Award, which is given to the team that “is chosen by the judges as having best represented a role model FIRST Tech Challenge Team.” This award qualified us for the State Competition.
• The team won the Think Award and the second place Inspire Award at State. This helped us qualify for the Super Regional competition where we competed against the entire west coast!

2014 / 15

• I was selected as a National Dean’s List finalist at the State Competition. A Dean’s List winner demonstrates technical expertise, commitment to the FIRST community, and the ability to lead teammates. Here is the link to my school’s write up about this award.
• My team placed second and won the second place Inspire Award at the State Competition, which qualified us for the Super Regional Competition.