Madera South’s gym transformed once more into the stage for the annual central valley regional this last weekend. Robotics teams from across the state and beyond flocked to Madera to share in the excitement of the event.

On Friday, the doors to the pit opened and teams poured in to prep robots and run practice matches so they would be ready for Saturday’s qualification rounds. Team 1323 was unable to run any practice matches as it took the entire day to fully prepare the competition robot. While several team members finished the robot, the drive team stayed at North to get some practice with the second robot. However, time was split between coding and practicing, so the drivers could not get enough practice to reach the equivalent of practicing at the competition.

The competition is organized by sets of qualification matches, followed by alliance selection, and finally elimination rounds. Random teams of three compete all day Saturday and some of Sunday in order to achieve the highest rank possible. After these matches end, the top eight teams select two permanent teammates for eliminations. Then, a tournament bracket is created and teams play to move on by winning two out of three matches in quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals.

Team 1323 was not as strong as expected this year as a result of coding issues and inexperienced drivers. Seeding thirtieth out of forty-nine teams, 1323 was unable to operate at its full potential for any of the qualifications. However, in the spirit of gracious professionalism, 1323 received assistance from other teams to fix their issues and was ultimately selected by team 254 and 1678 to join their alliance and enter eliminations. 1323 was not present until finals, because they were adding a mechanism to improve team synergy with the alliance. Ultimately, the alliance succeeded and all three teams earned their tickets to the world championships.

Pre-Competition Preparations.

With the Competition Robot bagged, work on parts required planning on how to quickly add final items to the robot during the regional. The week was primarily consumed by testing final alterations and creating a finished robot. To do this, the team tested different tweaks and add-ons to the robot. The reverse carriage, which holds the totes and recycling bin in place, required the most testing, and needed three versions to be tested before a final design could be selected. While parts were being put together, mounted, tested, unmounted and changed, some students were busy machining parts for pieces which had been tested, as well as parts to test later.

                The intake was changed to be faster and more efficient by adding longer arms and a second set of rollers. The reverse carriage had separate components for the totes and recycling container finalized. Because there is a gap between the reverse carriage and carriage, the recycling bin has the issue of being loosely held in the robot until more totes are added to bring it into the grip of the reverse carriage. Until then, the can has the potential to fall out of the robot. To fix this, pistons were put onto the powered carriage to pin the bin in place until it reaches the appropriate height.