Paragon Science Academy FTC team # 12241 (formerly #6471)
FTC Season 2019/2020 SKYSTONE, a Star Wars themed game to build skyscrapers
On February 22nd, we went to state after qualifying at the Queen Creek qualifier. During the qualifier we got our robot’s arm working and able to stack quite a few blocks on the platform (for info about the game look up FTC Skystone game manual). It was an amazing experience and I will definitely be returning to FTC next year. While we did not qualify for nationals, we would like to congratulate all the teams that did qualify and wish them luck in nationals.
On January 25th, Pearce and I (Marco) went to Connect2STEM. It was a very STEM focused event, and also appealed to a younger audience, which worked in our favor since PromoBot dispenses candy. During the event we were approached by the D-Backs’ STEM coordinators, who invited us to their own STEM event that they are inviting a bunch of robotics teams to promote STEM in baseball. Overall, the event was an extremely fun and interesting event, in which we were able to talk to many kids and parents, and I feel we made an impact on the people we talked to.
We went to the White Mountain Qualifier in Heber-Overgaard, AZ. We made it to the semifinals. Our sister team, Robosapiens #10369, won the competition. Afterwards, we ate pizza with Team #8081, Knights of the Lab Table.
We volunteered at a competition hosted by Team #8081, Knights of the Lab Table. There where two teams from Mexico there. I reminded people when they had their judging session.
Parker, Pearce, Joaquin, and I visited the Microsoft Store today. We brought Promobot, our outreach robot. We also took a picture with Santa.
Ahmed and I(Marco) are the ones that volunteered for an event called Go Baby Go which is a nonprofit committed to helping toddlers that aren’t able to walk due to a disability and modify toy cars to be able to be used by them and to let them have fun and develop their brains. Our role in this was modifying the cars to be able to fit the kids and to be comfortable and easy to use.
The Paragon Panthers #12241 and the Robosapiens # 10369 visiting the Knights #8081 for the Meet the field event.
The Panther Robotics Team all went to Gilbert Christian High School and met with the two teams. The programming and builders discussed our robot’s parts and the code they used for autonomous. The Knight’s robot wasn’t working at first and both teams helped them fix it, unfortunately it still didn’t work . Afterwards our builders started tightening the screws so the robot wouldn’t fall apart while our programmers improved the code they already made. Meanwhile our Outreach member, Pearce, was working on our new brochures for this 2019-2020 year. After, all 3 teams started comparing their robots. After a few hours of working we said bye to the teams.
When comparing the robots, we figured out we all used mecanum wheels, also known as omni wheels, for our robots. These wheels let the robot move sideways with minimum friction making it as easy as moving forward.
As we were in the event, our programmers learned from the other teams a few things about how to build robots. Our lead programmer, Cameron, says that he learned that, “In autonomous we could use the gyroscope in the hub to tell which direction the robot is facing and rotate according to were the robot is located. Also we talked about distance sensors in order to find the building stage and move it to the building zone.” which helped them know more about how some hardware worked.
“We were talking about the capstone detailed designs”
Mr.Robert helped the Robosapiens team by teaching Nick from that team on how to use the stake machine
All of the members pitched in on ideas for this entry
Thank you Knights for having us!
Also, Ahmed found donuts with sprinkles shaped like D’s which is oh so important.