Robotics Story from March 10 at the 2012 Autodesk Oregon Regional Competition

Written by: Jason Vilaysanh

Sitting in the cheering crowd, anticipation flows through my body; the FRC Team 2811 Skyview Stormbot 4, affectionately nicknamed the “Linfiltrator 2811” after the basketball player Jeremy Lin, was about to compete. Amongst the rest of the audience at the 2012 Autodesk Oregon Regional, I cry out in excitement and joy. It would be our time to shine: we would show everyone what the outcome of our hard work would be. Our robot sits still before the match starts. Tension fills my body. Autonomous mode is over, and our robot remains still, as planned. The match starts, and our robot is motionless.

Connor, one of the robot drivers, was definitely surprised. The robot didn’t move the entire match, and our rankings would clearly suffer because of it.

“I was scared; during the entire match, I was in great psychological pain.”

The problem with the robot couldn’t be diagnosed at first. Both Aric and Mike felt the same way about our robot’s lack of mobility: frustrated.

“All I could think when it happened was: ‘come on, why do you have to stop working now?’”

However, instead of throwing in the towel and calling it quits, the team went into overdrive to root out the source of the robot’s problem. That called for tons of hustling, analyzing, and intense work. It was later determined that some loose wires and a fired motor controller would be the cause of our robot’s paralysis.

“Once we figured out what was wrong with the robot, I was relieved. It didn’t defeat us. In a way, it gave us strength.”

Perhaps the robot malfunction was more useful than having it operating perfectly the entire time. It showed the team exactly what perseverance and determination could do. In spectacular 2811 style, we not only constructed a robot, but we discovered skills for our future. We learned how powerful willpower is.

“The team worked so hard on fixing up the robot. I’m proud to be a part of this team”

Fixing the failing robot was just the start, improving the robot is our next step. Jeff reveals that the newly fixed robot might be getting quite a few upgrades before our next competition in Seattle.

“With some reprogramming and rewriting, we’ll eventually get it to do everything we planned it to do, like autonomous mode. The whole team works hard, and we’ll keep on working hard to improve our robot.”