KICKOFF | Ultimate Ascent
THE MESSENGER-PRESS:
ROBBINSVILLE — Their task is to design and build a robot that can climb a metal tower and toss Frisbees through targets faster and more accurately than thousands of other robots. And they have six weeks to do it.
Students from Robbinsville, Allentown, Hamilton, Hightstown and other communities gathered at Montgomery High School on Jan. 5 for the kickoff of the 2013 FIRST Robotics Competition season and watch the NASA-TV webcast revealing this year’s challenge. All over the world 51,000 students were assembled in similar gatherings to watch the live announcement broadcast from Southern New Hampshire University.
Every year, FIRST (an acronym that means For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) reveals a new challenge that gives students the opportunity to test their robotics and engineering know-how in arena-style competitions at regional — and if they’re successful — national and international events.
This year’s challenge is called Ultimate Ascent and requires robots to throw Frisbees through several targets to earn points, then climb metal towers at the center of the playing field. High schools will form three-team alliances during the competitions, assigning robots to specific tasks such as tossing, climbing, and retrieving Frisbees on the playing field.
The RHS FIRST Robotics Team 2590 and other area high schools were able to take advantage of workshops on topics such as pneumatics, the LabVIEW software design system, and the judging criteria for the Chairman’s Award, the competition’s most prestigious honor, while they waited for the official broadcast to begin.
The atmosphere was reminiscent of Christmas morning jitters, as students exchanged curious glances and strained to peek under the curtain hanging 2 inches off the ground. As the minutes passed the students’ guesses about what was to come were becoming wilder.
”I bet it’s a pyramid!” called out Julia Borowski, a member of the RHS Robotics Build Team.
Finally, around 11:30 a.m., everyone was called to attention. The auditorium waited in nervous anticipation as the new game was announced and an animation explaining the rules was played.
”Good luck and we’ll see you at this year’s competition!” the video concluded, leaving its audience in stunned silence.
And it was for a good reason. The robots must not only be able to toss Frisbees into small goals of varying heights, they must also be able to climb pyramid-shaped metal towers located in the center of the 27x54-foot arena.
Under the rules of Ultimate Ascent, robots will be able to earn 1 to 5 points, depending on the difficulty of the target, but the most points are awarded to the robots that can climb the pyramids. During the last 20 seconds, robots can earn 10 to 30 points, depending on how high they can climb before time runs out.
Ultimate Ascent will be played in randomly selected 3 vs. 3 alliances in rounds that are two minutes and 15 seconds long. During the first 15 seconds of the match, called the Autonomous Period, the robot will follow pre-programmed instructions to score as many goals as possible for double points. Then the student drivers step in for the Teleoperated Period, and the disks really start to fly.
Since the various school alliances are randomly selected each round, cooperation and gracious professionalism are expected.
”FIRST isn’t about competing, it’s about cooperating and recognizing that if you have the right tools, you’ll be able to make this world a better place for yourself and for the country,” said Dean Kamen, the president of DEKA Research and Development and FIRST founder.
Despite their initial incredulity, after a day of reading the manual and brainstorming ideas RHS Nemesis Team 2590 members returned to the Robbinsville High School Technology Lab with high hopes for the design and build season. The next few weeks will be filled with lots of hard work, but when the robot is finally complete, all of those long hours will be worthwhile.
Game on!