2015

Recycle Rush

2015's game was based on a recycling theme. Robots had to stack totes and place them on platforms to earn points. Teams also earned more points if they could place a recycling bin on top of the stack of totes, with even more points being awarded if a pool noodle was placed inside the recycling bin before it was scored. In this game the field was split in half, so robots could not cross onto the opposing alliance's side of the field. If teams wanted to "play defense," the human player could throw pool noodles across the field to earn points for each pool noodle on the opponent's side of the field. This added an addional challenge for robots because they needed to be able to drive over the pool noodles. Driving over the pool noodles proved to be a challenge for some types of robot drive systems.

Our robot in 2015 was called "Phat Stacks." Our robot could stack totes 5-6 totes high. We could stack 5 totes with a recycle bin, or 6 totes without a recycle bin due to the competition stacking height limit. This season was one of the few seasons team 60 did not use West Coast Drive (a 6 wheel drive system with 3 wheels on each side and the center wheel on each side dropped an 1/8th of an inch). For this game, we decided to use what was known as mechanum drive. Mechanum drive is a 4 wheel drive system where each wheel has 45 degree angled rollers attached. These wheels allow the robot to move in any direction. This alloweed us to effectively manuever around the field since we could drive sideways and diagonal in addition to fowards, backwards, and turning.

In 2015 we competed at the Arizona East Regional, Las Vegas Regional, and World Championships in St. Louis. At the Arizona East Regional we were finalists and won the Excellence in Engineering Award. One of our mentors also won the Woodie Flowers Award, which is an award recognizing a mentor's impact to their team and community; and one of our students won the Dean's List Finalist Award, which recognizes a student who represents the values of FIRST Robotics and has a significant impact to their team.
In Las Vegas, the team was captain of the finalist alliance and won the Regional Engineering Inspiration Award, which qualified the team for the world championships and got our entry fee sponsored by NASA.
At the World Championships in St. Louis, we competed in the Carson division. We finished the event as division quarterfinalists.