This qualifier was an exciting although stressful part of the season. We arrived group by group to the competition, and by 8:00AM everyone had made it to American Leadership Academy. We set up our pit display, went through the notebook one last time before submitting it, and added final touches to the robot before heading over to our judging session. The judges were kind and friendly, and their encouragement made it possible for us to run through our pieces smoothly. Shortly after the judging session, the whole team held our breaths when the servo on the arm broke off less than an hour before matches began during a practice run. Thanks to our amazing builders, however, we were ready for action by the time the coach and drivers went to queue up for our first match. The matches went well as Collin added changes to the code throughout the day, preparing Neil Strong Arm for action as our performance gradually improved. The builders were kept busy all day with modifications commissioned by Collin. Jinia, Jareen, Nadra, and Baya took notes during the matches, scouting the best teams and noting the most unique or efficient robot designs. During the matches, Farrsh spoke with parents, students, and judges at the pit, inviting them to view our displays, Promobot, and cultural foods. When qualifying matches were over, we were picked as Prestige #14999’s second team in our three-team alliance, and won the semifinals, going on to compete in the finals against #4216 Rise of Hephaestus’ alliance. Our alliance partners lost the first final match, and we closed in on the second match only 4 points behind Rise, earning the position as finalist alliance partners. In the end, our hard work paid off in the form of 1st place Inspire Award, 3rd place Innovate Award, and finalist alliance partner. Overall, this qualifier served as good practice for how we hope to perform at the state tournament next month.
Category: FTC2018/19 – Rover Ruckus
Promobot @ FABU America
The Paragon Panthers Promobot is on the road again. This time we introduced FIRST to FABU America, a startup located in Tempe, Arizona; our coach joined this company recently. Two other employees know the FIRST Inspires program due to their kids participating in FLL and FRC. FABU is creating a new SoC for object detection for self driving cars to support autonomous driving. Everybody like driving the promobot and have various questions about the bot including material cost and build time. The employees liked the sturdiness and were impressed by the construction quality of this robot. The upgraded wheels are doing very well on solid surface but struggle on carpet especially with turning.
Turkish Festival- Outreach Event
The SEMA Foundation, a Turkish organization and cultural center, hosted a Turkish festival. Handmade food, fashion, and goods were available at the festival. Music, games, and dances was also performed by the children of the SEMA foundation. The Festival was held at their center all day, and they had a large turnout of people, many of whom were families.
We were able to take the Promobot (along with traditional Turkish candies) and display it to the visitors and participants in the festival. Promobot was very popular especially with the kids in the crowd, many of whom were excited and asked about the construction of the robot, and how many candies were inside.
We also made a point to talk about FIRST with the parents who were watching, and inform them about the STEM opportunities that FIRST provides to our communities and how their kids can be a part of it. Many of the parents were interested and asked if FIRST was available at their child’s school and if not, how they could get them signed up for a community FLL or FTC team.
Check out our YouTube video about the event!
Helping Hand Loading Day- Outreach Event
Helping Hand Relief and Development is a nonprofit organization that works worldwide to provide humanitarian aid to less fortunate people in countries afflicted by war, natural disasters, or famine. Helping Hand works with local communities to pack donated clothes, food, and supplies, and ship large containers to these countries to be distributed.
We volunteered with the organization Helping Hand for Relief and Development, where we assisted in loading a container for Somalia while representing FIRST. In this effort our goal was to aid the struggling groups that are in the global community under the banner of FIRST.
We wanted to show that FIRST goes beyond the robot and the field and that benefiting the community, both global and local is an important aspect of STEM. After a brief introduction, we began to work, loading boxes of supplies into a container that would be heading to Somalia. After volunteering we showcased our Promobot.
During this we spoke to many of the attendees and volunteers about FIRST and our Promobot. We were able to teach many of the volunteers and attendees about FIRST and we got the opportunity to talk about Promobot and our competing robot.
This was overall a very fun experience where we got to not only support a cause that would benefit the global community, but we were also able to inform people about FIRST and what it represents.
Voyager 2 enters interstellar space
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) published this video on Dec 10th 2018 about the still transmitting Voyager 2 launched on 1977. This happened 41 years ago, amazing. It contains footage from the launch with the “medieval computers” (20 – 30 generations ago).
White Mountain Qualifier – Heber, AZ
The first competition in the new season for our team was a rollercoaster ride for a lack of better terms. Our builders stayed up late Thursday night to finish the robot and continued working on it throughout the competition. Nonetheless, there were various unfortunate issues during the matches. Our robot had problems with the program, could not place our team marker in the depot, and was unable to land from the lander at the beginning of autonomous. In one of the matches, our robot actually flew across the field into the crater and landed on its side as soon as the match began. The entire audience gasped in shock and was even more surprised when our alliance actually won the match. During alliance choosing, there was controversy over sudden ranking changes and many teams were unaware of this. Due to this, the competition coordinators asked the audience if they should redo the alliance picks. Of course, the audience gave the graciously professional answer: Yes. We were graciously chosen by Die Krieger to join their alliance for the semi-finals. Together we competed to the best of our ability but lost in the end. Even though our robot was having difficulties, our team shined in other ways. Our pit was decorated with our display board, sponsor poster, promobot tri-fold, a monitor showing pictures of our Outreach activities, and treats from different countries across the world for other teams (and our own) to enjoy. Our team members danced during the break and interacted with every team at the competition whenever we had the chance. We built a great connection specifically with the Marvels, a new FTC team created through an Islamic Community Center in New Mexico. After the finals, the award ceremony began and it was a great success for us. We won 3rd place in Motivate, 2nd in Connect, and 1st Place in Design. But best of all, we won 2nd place Inspire and qualified for the State Championship. We couldn’t be more grateful. Overall, the competitive environment between other teams was positive and gracious professionalism was integral. The only issue I would present was the obvious tension between our own coaches and team members and the tension within the team in general during the competition. However, we discussed this after returning from Heber and I believe it was a lesson for us to grow from as a team for next time.
FIRST White Mountain Qualifier: November 10, 2018
Our good friends from fellow FTC team #8995 The Jaegers from Heber-Overgaard, AZ hosted a qualifier at Mogollon High School on November 10th, 2018. We attended this qualifier as our first FTC tournament this season, and we drove up to Heber on November 9th, ready to officially kick off and Rover Ruckus.
The first competition in the new season for our team was a rollercoaster ride for a lack of better terms. Our builders stayed up late Thursday night to finish the robot and continued working on it throughout the competition. Nonetheless, there were various unfortunate issues during the matches. Our robot had problems with the program, could not place our team marker in the depot, and was unable to land from the lander at the beginning of autonomous. In one of the matches, our robot actually flew across the field into the crater and landed on its side as soon as the match began. The entire audience gasped in shock and was even more surprised when our alliance actually won the match. During alliance choosing, there was controversy over sudden ranking changes and many teams were unaware of this. Due to this, the competition coordinators asked the audience if they should redo the alliance picks. Of course, the audience gave the graciously professional answer: Yes. We were graciously chosen by Die Krieger to join their alliance for the semi-finals. Together we competed to the best of our ability but lost in the end. Even though our robot was having difficulties, our team shined in other ways. Our pit was decorated with our display board, sponsor poster, promobot tri-fold, a monitor showing pictures of our Outreach activities, and treats from different countries across the world for other teams (and our own) to enjoy. Our team members danced during the break and interacted with every team at the competition whenever we had the chance. We built a great connection specifically with the Marvels, a new FTC team created through an Islamic Community Center in New Mexico. After the finals, the award ceremony began and it was a great success for us. We won 3rd place in Motivate, 2nd in Connect, and 1st Place in Design. But best of all, we won 2nd place Inspire and qualified for the State Championship. We couldn’t be more grateful. Overall, the competitive environment between other teams was positive and gracious professionalism was integral. The only issue I would present was the obvious tension between our own coaches and team members and the tension within the team in general during the competition. However, we discussed this after returning from Heber and I believe it was a lesson for us to grow from as a team for next time. With a combination of our excellent outreach program, the dedication of our builders, and our pit display, we were able to show the judges and the other FIRST members the truth of our motto “12241 STEM is for everyone!”
Be sure to stay posted on our YouTube Channel for a video of our adventures in Heber! Link below!
Written by Jinia Meherin
Edited by Baya Laimeche
White Mountain Qualifier: Here We Come
Our Motto: 1.2.4.4.1. STEM IS FOR EVERYONE
This season started with an additional time crunch. The Jaegers hosted the first FIRST Tech Challenge qualifier competition in Arizona this year, in Heber-Overgaard in the White Mountains. It was one week earlier than the first qualifier last year, and it was our first competition this year.
With our usual procrastination, we barely finished the robot late on Thursday night, the day before the competition. We packed up the rest of our gear and loaded it into cars on Friday. The Robot left first and arrived 3 hours ahead of the rest of the team at the competitions site – not by self-driving there I must admit. After the rest of the team arrived, we set up our pit area with our traditional display and a new addition – the Panther. The pit closed at 8:30 pm and we took the robot with us to the hotel so that we could keep working on it until the early morning hours.
On Saturday morning, we were greeted by an invigorating 23F (or -5C). Thanks to the hotel manager for setting up an early breakfast; the pits opened at 7am and breakfast usually starts at the same time. We needed to finish the robot. Our focus this year included the judging sessions as well as the judge’s interviews during the day. We spent extra time on Friday to polish the notebook by adding 3D design printouts. They looked really nice. We enhanced our pit area with international candy and cookies from our home countries to share, and added cute little carved aliens that matched our alien giveaways to other teams. The outreach team went above and beyond to explain the robot and our international teams’ origin.
This competition was the first in the nation to use the new live scoring system. It had a rocky start, just like some of the robots including our own. In theory we can release the robot and lift it up at the end. We tested these features before we left and they seemed to work, but when we tried it on Saturday morning it wasn’t reliable (and the gears made some nasty noises) so we abandoned this feature for the entire competition.
Our first game of the qualification round was with Beep Patrol who scored most of the points while we contributed some 20 – 30 points by playing soccer with the board elements and scored the end game points by entering the crater. Thank you, Beep Patrol.
Out robot was the only one that actually achieved lift-off, and became airborne as it entered the crater. Unfortunately, the robot landed on its side and was unable to move any further, but we were fully inside the crater and scored an additional 25 points in the end game – sweet.
We were chosen by the 4th alliance captain, Die Krieger (literally: The Warriors) from New Mexico, as their partner for the semi finals but our alliance did not advance to the finals.
At the award ceremony, we receive four awards:
- Prestigious INSPIRE Award: second place
- Design Award: first place
- Connect Award: second place
- Motivate Award: third place
The INSPIRE Award qualified us for the state competition in Flagstaff which will be held on February the 22nd/23rd 2019
Thank you to all of the teams participating for making this a great event. We really appreciate and are thankful for the efforts of the Jaegers and all other teams and volunteers in Arizona for hosting the regional and state competitions.
One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for Robot-kind
We were finally able to get our beloved robot Neil Strongarm to deploy from the lander! Not only is the robot able to deploy from the lander, but he is also able to lift himself onto the lander, however while the robot is capable of doing this, the program still needs to be finished in order for Neil Strongarm to finish his 𝘍𝘐𝘙𝘚𝘛 landing.
Watch the video here:
Part 1:
Part 2: