The Pirate Journals
The New York City Regional has a very special place in our hearts. It’s our hometown tournament, and it’s where all our friends are. There’s nothing better than having 3 days of robot action with the friends we’ve made throughout the years. From the years at the Javits Center to the current location at the Armory Track, the NYC Regional has always brought forth fun times, amazing robots, and an opportunity to mingle with international teams.
Phew, that was quite the weekend up at Rockland Community College in Suffern. The G-House Pirates took part in the Hudson Valley Regional for the 2nd time, and like last season, it was tons of fun. We got to catch up with old friends, make new ones, and somehow manage to squeeze in time for a robotics competition.
Day 1 at a regional event is usually unbag/inspection/panic/practice day. Lately, the team has been pretty good about passing inspection quickly, which then means that we can hit up the practice fields early and often. For example, in the 2018 season, we went from unbag to inspected in about 45 minutes, a new team record!
We’re still chugging away at getting the prototype climber built. Initial testing showed promise, but the geometry needs to be tweaked a little. The elevator and intake team has also finished mounting the elevator on our test chassis and will be installing the intake in the coming days. Once that’s done and tested, we’re going to prep material for manufacture. This year, we’re going to be a little more organized and prepare a “cut-list” of pieces so that multiple people can work on fabrication.
This season, we’ve been dedicating a lot more time to prototyping and CAD-ing different mechanisms, and making said prototypes out of wood/PVC pipe. This has given us a tremendous improvement in figuring out critical dimensions, and a way to visualize how stuff fits together. We’ve spent the last 2 weeks refining different methods for grabbing and controlling the game pieces, and are pretty close to having a final design done!
The team attended kickoff at Long Island University in Brooklyn, a quick 10 minute walk from the school. Once kickoff was over, the brainstorming began. This year’s game seems really simple on the surface, but could be open to some incredibly strategic plays. We’ll see what our collective brains can come up with!
