RCS Robotics places 1st at Northern Colorado Regional Tournament

Congratulations to the Ridgeview Robotics team for being a member of the 1st Place Alliance Team at the Northern Colorado Regional Tournament.  The Robotics Team will advance to the Colorado State Championships at Mountain Range High School in Denver.  The Ridgeview team also took 1st Place for the Control Award that is given to the team with the Best Robotics Automation (click here to see the Robot in action).  They also received 1st Place for the Connection Award for their outreach to the community.

The Robotics team has been tempting fate all year by naming their robot Murphy (ie. what can go wrong, will go wrong at the most inopportune time).  They started the tournament by having to squeeze the robot size down by 1/16th of an inch because the robot was just outside of the 18” x 18” X 18” design spec requirement. Then during the qualification rounds, the robot would show a spark of brilliance and then be shut down by  Electrostatic Discharge being generated by a metal robot spinning plastic wheels on a foam carpet on a warm dry day.  The shock would disable the electronics controller and shut off the machine.  They also had to battle a worn out connector on the Android Phone that controls the operations of the robot.  Over the lunch break, they swapped out to a new phone and completely rebuilt the operating environment and software for the robot.  The team persisted and was able solve enough of the Electrostatic discharge and cable connection issues to be able to demo their amazing block retrieval and stacking capabilities to the top teams.  The demos paid off and they were selected by one of the four alliance team captains to be on their team for the finals.  In the Championship rounds, they did a splendid job in helping their alliance team win 1st Place by retrieving and stacking blocks, moving the build platform and parking in the home space.  They now have a week to permanently fix Electrostatic and worn out cable issues so they can shine at state.

The top Ridgeview Competitive Team robot was completely designed, built, programmed and tested by Ridgeview students.  Please congratulate all members of the Ridgeview Robotics Club for their great work on the FTC Competition Robots: Ferin V.R., Samuel P., Daniel Y., Damien Y., Kilwich A., Willem S., Catherine A., Kira H., Andrew T., and Ryan O.

Also, please extend a hearty thank you to Miss O’Neal for her help with this year’s Robotics team, the Johnson Hanson Foundation for their financial support  as well as our graduate school mentors from the Engineering Robotics program at Colorado State University.

Go Hoplites!