Servo - June 2008

(Mini Robotics) was sitting in 11th place. It was now time to choose alliances for the elimination rounds.

Now, as the team captain standing beside the stage with 49 other captains — everyone was in high school while I was in 8th grade — I had a strong chance of getting onto an alliance. Well, I was thinking I would be picked by another alliance captain — but it got better. They called all seven alliance captain teams and then they called me up to the stage as the eighth alliance captain. Again, just an 8th grader, team captain, in front of an eager audience with all the other alliance captains. I picked teams 104 and 106 to be my partners.

Now in the finals, the eighth alliance plays against the first alliance, seventh against second, etc. So, I was up against Simbotics again and their alliance. Unfortunately, I didn’t stand a chance against their amazing robot. That is the one problem with something like this. They have a team from a school, they have tons of Vex parts, and also years of experience. Put this team against a one-man, low amount of parts team and you get destruction. They won both their matches against my alliance. All of our robots were great ... their’s were just better.

Oh well, we had a great time anyway! I learned so much from the build season, and the competition was awesome! At the end, there was the awards ceremony. Everyone from every team crowds into the auditorium to await the announcement of the winners for the Inspire award, the Innovate award, the Amaze award, and the tons of awards FIRST gives out to not just the top ranked teams, but to the little teams; the rookie teams, even teams who got last place.

I won the Amaze Award — just my brother, my dad, and I on one team where my brother drove. As the name states, the Amaze award is given to a team who does something amazing. Not just a great robot, but something outstanding that not just every team can do. For our team, it was the fact that we did build an amazing robot with limited parts. It was also that I was the youngest at that tournament — that even an 8th grader can start a team and show FIRST spirit, and also me writing that technical manual on the BasicX microcontroller may have helped.

So, was this worth it? I spent hours on the forums, absorbing and researching information, tinkering with robots at my desk until 2 AM; got back, neck, and wrist pain repairing and building the robot, and most crucial, the time spent organizing all of this. Yes, this was worth it! Put a kid on a FIRST team and they will develop and learn creativity, leadership, engineering, technology, web development, CAD, and all sorts of stuff about robotics. Just ask anybody on the Chief Delphi forum. Possibly even more important, I had a huge amount of fun and it was definitely the best experience of my life.

For pictures of the Ontario Tournament at Woburn C.I. in Toronto, visit http://theroboticsuniverse.com which is also my website, so if you want to know more about me and my projects, go there. I also encourage you to check out my sponsor — NetMedia ( www.net

Resources

If you want to learn more about FIRST or better yet, become a team member, mentor, coach, volunteer, or even sponsor, check out the links below. There are also links to forums and Vex stuff. Thanks for reading!

FIRST — www.usfirst.org
Vex — www.vexlabs.com
Chief Delphi — www.chiefdelphi.com
Vex Forum — www.vexforum.com
FIRST Canada — www.firstroboticscanada.org
My Website — www.theroboticsuniverse.com
FIRST Objective — www.firstobjective.org

media.com) — as they make microcontrollers, cameras, and web servers (perfect for robot hobbyists!). They were an excellent and caring sponsor and I thank them so much! I’m now moving on to writing a book on Mini Robotics and am making more robots with Vex and just whatever I can get my hands on, so check my website frequently for updates. SV

Andrew Horsman is a 13-year-old student in 8th grade attending Brant Hills Public School. He has a FIRST Tech Challenge team named Mini Robotics and has been a robot hobbyist for years. He is currently writing a book on Mini Robotics with the BasicX microcontroller and hopes to be finished and published by the end of 2008. Watch for upcoming articles in SERVO on his Mini Robotics.

STEER WINNING ROBOTS

WITHOUT SERVOS!

Perform proportional speed, direction, and steering with only two Radio/Control channels for vehicles using two separate brush-type electric motors mounted right and left with our mixing RDFR dual speed control. Used in many successful competitive robots. Single joystick operation: up goes straight ahead, down is reverse. Pure right or left twirls vehicle as motors turn opposite directions. In between stick positions completely proportional. Plugs in like a servo to your Futaba, JR, Hitec, or similar radio. Compatible with gyro steering stabilization. Various volt and amp sizes available. The RDFR47E 55V 75A per motor unit pictured above. www.vantec.com