Build season is over! This year our engineering subteams took upon the Game Design Challenge, the Innovation Challenge, and Infinite Recharge at Home. This week, we were able to complete and submit the projects!
Our Game Design group focused on designing a FIRST Robotics Challenge game. During this process, our members came up with creative and new ideas for games like using an ingot shaped scoring object. This object would serve as the main objective as you could score them in 3 vertically placed holes which would require robots to develop an elevator climb. The game also included a secondary objective which was to move and place rings onto poles placed on the field. Endgame used a pulley system that would require robots to use chains and pull at them to score. In addition to the main project, the Game Design group also focused on teaching new members and introducing them to competitions. “Game Design’s been a challenge for sure,” says Natasha Kho. “It was a bit of a rough start as most of the members did not have competition experience… the game ended up being cool!”
A model of the field for Game Design.
Our Game Design group creating a playbook
Meanwhile, our Infinite Recharge group worked to improve on our previous robot design. They challenged themselves to shorten the height of our previous robot so it could go under game components like the trench. They also installed a shooter that could rotate over 300 degrees. “I must say that I'm extremely proud of the freshmen this year. I called many of them at night checking up on their progress and asking for help from them,” said Namky Eun. “There's so much to take away from it. First of all, we learned about how valuable communication and planning is, a lesson everyone on the team will surely remember until the end of their time on Sprocket. Secondly, most of the people working on the bot were completely inexperienced, starting from nothing, and this was truly the best we could have done by ourselves.”
The final robot design
Our Infinite Recharge group examining the game rules for ideas.
Last but not least, our Innovation Challenge group identified a real-world problem related to the season’s theme and designed a solution. The group worked to create an app where people of common sports interest could play together and promote mental and physical health. Though they finished their final product, the group is still determined to improve on themselves for future projects. “The UI looks kinda jank right now since I've mostly worked on functionality,” said Albert Guo. “[However,] I'm proud of being able to get our app to be functional and storing data on firebase.”
Our Innovation Challenge group brainstorming for problems and solutions.
Thank you to our Game Design, Innovation group, and Infinite Recharge groups for your work this season. This year was definitely a new experience to all members of Team Sprocket, especially with the recent pandemic. Yet, through these tough experiences, our team was still able to continue learning and growing. We hope to continue to participate in more challenges in the future build seasons!
Comments