Dead Robot Society Blog

No typo, I mean stress.

Every year on the Thursday before regionals, the team comes to the BotCave for something Mr. Gras calls “stress rehersal”. During this, whoever will be at the table running the robots at regionals, this year that’s Allison and Tucker, go through test runs while the rest of the team bothers them in any way possible. This includes playing loud music, flashing lights, shouting, and Allison’s personal favorite, poking. Stress rehersal is a really fun night for everyone who isn’t running the robots. In fact, it’s even kind of fun for them.

Allison attempting to block us out. Her efforts were futile.

The parents can come to watch and or participate in stress rehersal as well. Some parents, i.e. Mr. Grasmeder, participate more zealously than others. Stress rehersal is rather entertaining for all who have the pleasure of viewing it. If you get a chance you should definitely come check it out. I asked Mr. Gras if there’d be another stress rehersal before globals and his response, which was pretty much what I expected, was ”If I’m still breathing.” Apparently it was utterly ridiculous that I even asked. I’m glad we’ll have another one. Because stress rehersal, while it is, how should I put this… stressful, it’s also a lot of fun for the whole team. It’s something you can participate in without any knowledge of code writing or hardware, so I give it four out of four stars and two big thumbs up.

Aren't Tucker's earmuffs cute? He wore them so he couldn't hear the whistle Mr. Gras was blowing.

Quote of the night:

Tim: “Fail due to a catch on a cup.”

Anthony: “What? Ketchup?”

Another highlight was the steady arrival of Bagel Bites. Mrs. Newcastle would enter the Botcave with the latest batch, and Hannah would tiptoe over to grab a few but she wasn’t very sneaky. So everyone else would notice, crowd around, and inevitably add a few bagel bites to his plate. But Tim feels that plates are unnecessary, so he just popped one into his mouth. Granted, this is an oven-fresh bagel bite. So we all got to witness Tim with his mouth wide open and full of bagel bite as his eyes watered and he yelled because of his steadily burning tongue.

Then, of course, another tray of bagel bites arrives, and we all add some to our plates. But look! Tim has not learned. And the affair repeats itself.

We are continuing to work on the things that we wanted to change before Nationals. Ben is trying to get the Legobot across the bridge and mess up the other side as best we can, while also deploying the umbrellas. So far, his new code will put us about 15 points ahead of what we have previously gotten. But the other half of the bridge, as of now, is not going down anymore; we don’t think we’re going to try to get the Create across, since it only very rarely made it. Legobot will be in charge of the sabotage, while the Create will block anyone who tries to get to our side.

Anthony is trying to build a more sophisticated way of picking up a cup. It looks pretty tricky, but maybe it will work even better than the original claw.

Hannah is working with Legobot as well, in a different piece of its routine. She is trying to get it to see the green tribble on top of the blue cup so that we can aim towards it when we’re on their side and push it into their shelter.

We’re still working with the Create; code freeze, apparently, has been thawed. It’s doing better; it’s been grabbing the first cup and doing pretty well at getting the Tribble piles. Hardware needed to fix the claw because the top finger isn’t quite grabbing the Tribble on the top of the pile. To quote Liam, “HARDWARE!”

Seeding Round 1: 45 points.. our worst so far. Legobot didn’t make it back across the bridge with the Tribbles from the other side, so it just drove into the wall for awhile. The Create tried to go across the bridge slanted; that didn’t work out so well as usual so it ended up floating into space.

Seeding Round 2: 118! Much better! The Legobot did its routine perfectly this time: no circle at the beginning, it knocked the bridge down instantly and got across, then got back across with all of its green tribbles. The Create still isn’t done being programmed, but hopefully we’ll be done by tomorrow…

Head-to-Head Round 1: 57 points; we never made it over to their side, so this is assuming the other team didn’t gain any points. Project X failed to deploy and just got stuck in the Legobot, but we still got our three solar sails over the edge so that was nice! But with Project X stuck on us, we were too crooked to get across the bridge.

Head-to-Head Round 2: 86 points! Second best head-to-head score so far! Project X deployed beautifully, but it actually interfered with Legobot’s board-crossing ability. This score was taken after Mr. Gras fixed Legobot and got it back on track; had it been a real round, we would have only had 71 (because we wouldn’t have made the 15 points to get to their side).

While we were blender partying, Benjin was hard at work on the Create. Great job Benjin! Now it’s time to pack everything up carefully and nicely so we’ll be all ready tomorrow! Who’s excited??

Today is the day when we put our setter-uppers, Ben and Benjin, to the test. And when I say “to the test”, I mean an endless barrage of guitar hero, rock band (with tim’s singing), an air shooting gun, and plenty of other distractions. It should be fun and exciting for us, and adequately stressful for them. After this, the actual competition won’t be difficult at all!

And let’s start the practices!

Seeding Round 1: 85 points for us. The Create was messed up from the start, and missedall of its tribble piles. From that point on, it was grabbing at invisible tribbles and the alignment was totally off. The Legobot still performed well, grabbing green tribbles from the other side and bringing them back, and then parking itself in their start box. But the Create, though its goal was to join the Legobot in the start box, was so off that it just ran itself into our wall. PLUS, it didn’t shut itself off within the 2-minute time limit, which would disqualify us in competition. A major thing to fix.

Seeding Round 2: 127 points. Neither of the robots made it to their start square, which caused us to miss out on 45 points. Legobot made it to their side, but time ran out before it got into the box because at the beginning it did a full rotation before knocking down the bridge. The Create got all of its Tribbles, but became misaligned when it was time to throw its final cup off the table. After that, it started at a diagonal across the bridge, and ended up falling into space.

Seeding Round 3: 77 points. Ouch. The Legobot did its little spin at the beginning again, so once more it didn’t make it all the way to the other side’s start box. It got messed up soon after making it to the other side, so it pushed a few Tribbles over the edge plus it ran into the wall for awhile. The Create fell over the edge of the bridge again. We’ve set up an excel spreadsheet to easily calculate our points, and it’s pretty handy.

Seeding Round 4: 52. We’re getting worse with every round, which is bad. The Create was still grabbing for invisible Tribbles, and ended up staying on our side. It was ugly.

Seeding Round 5: 119 points! We’re coming back! The Create managed to actually find some Tribble piles this time, and the Legobot’s spin didn’t go too far. But the Create still got somewhat messed up and pushed three cups into our shelter, making them even more negative points. However, they both made it to the other side. The Legobot got all the way into the start box, but the Create didn’t get properly lined up so it couldn’t fit.. loss of 15 points.

We’ve had enough of the seeding round.. it’s time to practice the head-to-head with my favorite project X! We haven’t had distractions yet, just a few board mix-ups (badly placed tribble piles, cups, umbrellas, and bridges down). Distractions and fun stuff can only come after we’ve gotten through enough mistakes to take more time for each run.

Head-to-Head 1: We beat them by 89 points (we had 86, they had -3). Obviously, the head-to-head will be much more interesting with real competition. Deployment of project X went nicely, but the Create is still not doing as well as we’d like: it missed the first pile, and didn’t toss the cups over the edge, rather, it pushed more of them into our shelter.

Head-to-Head Against Ourselves: No robots made it across, because the Legobot on one side got the bridge down before Project X was deployed, so they just crashed into each other in front of the bridge and stayed there until the 119 seconds was up. The side running by head-to-head programming ended up with a 55, and the side set for seating round only had 8. It was interesting to see them go against each other. The Creates are still having difficulties picking up the cups; more often than not, they’re pushing them into the shelter rather than tossing them over the edge, which adds to our negative points.

Stress time!

Seeding Round 6: 54 points. Not a great seeding round. The Create continues to miss its cups during the second half of its routine. The Legobot didn’t make it back across the bridge to our side with their green tribbles, after which it would have gone back to their start box. That lost us a lot of points. Both bots got stuck going across the bridge, and at the end each was halfway off. Once again, we lost plenty of good points that could have been gained had we gotten to the other side.

Head-to-Head Against Ourselves 2: Don’t know what the score was, but it seemed about even. Once again, Project X didn’t get there in time, and the robots fought each other. However, the epic battle ended when the seeding round’s Legobot fell off the bridge into space. It was hilarious. The Create threw some orange tribbles off the edge instead of cups; off course, we’d love to lose the positive points instead of the negative ones! How did it know?

Head-to-Head Without Opponent 2: Project X backfired and we almost kept ourselves from getting across, but somehow the weight of the bot prevented the bridge from becoming too much of a ramp. It still made it across, but ended up misaligned; since it lacks a safety, it just ran itself into the wall for awhile. The Create did well with its tribbles, but ended up falling over the edge of the bridge again.

Hardware’s got some quick fixes to do; all of those plunges into deep space have caused a bit of distress to our beloved bots. Software has one or two things to work on as well; hopefully the little things can be quickly adjusted.

Tomorrow is time for pack’n'party! Hopefully the bots look a little nicer before we pack them away.

Quote of the night: “Are there any more pluggy places?” - Benjin

Tim’s mom brought pizza fondue! It is very interesting and quite delicious. In between bites, we’re performing test after test after test. Mr. Newcastle and Mr. Grasmeder rearranged our practice tables today, so we can work with the board at the exact size it will be at competition. Since we have been working with only a little bit more than half of the board so far, there are a few unexpected changes that need to be made in programming distance. All of the robots have now been programmed to start with the light cue, so we’ve just been running them over and over to make sure everything goes flawlessly (or as close to flawlessly as we can get).

“Don’t leave the light on!” said Mr. Newcastle, to which Mrs. Newcastle added, “Tim will get injured!”. It is true. Apparently some time in the past, Tim has managed to to burn himself on the hot hot lightbulbs. And, according to his mom, he still has a scar.

The fun part about having two tables is the path one must take to set up the robot. It’s a nice little crawl-under-the-table routine, plus the added obstacle of the rather hot lightbulb.

The setter-uppers also have to be able to count up our points, just in case there are any disputes. Obviously, if there is some sort of error on the part of the judges, we have to be able to point it out before the table is reset. Rumor has it that Anthony made a program on his calculator to easily count up the number of points we gain. Its usefulness factor outweighs its nerdiness! Wow!

“9001 - it’s over nine thousand!” Liam typed the number and apparently 9001 cannot be erased. He can’t believe I don’t know what he is referring to, and Benjin can’t either. It’s either “a nerd thing” or “a TJ thing”, but as Tim pointed out, the two are synonymous.

Ben and Benjin are our official setter-uppers, and Liam and Tim are helping them with the checklist. Right now they each have their own checklist, which makes everything more difficult. The setter-uppers also have only 60 seconds for their setting up, so the pressure’s on! The checklist lists every single step, even those as simple as checking to see if the robots are on. As Mr. Grasmeder said, during combat, during public speaking, or during competitions, three of the times when a big brain would be most helpful, one’s brain usually shrinks to about peanut size.

We’ve never run both of the robots at the same time, and the collision factor is a bit nerve wracking. So far in seeding round, the Legobot and the Create aren’t sharing the other side’s start box very well; if we hadn’t grabbed the Legobot out of the way, it would have been brutally crushed by the Create, and possibly tipped over the edge. On the first run, the arms of Legobot got tangled in the cords of the Create right at the beginning, which isn’t a great start. The double-robot factor is adding a few extra strains, but hopefully we’ll get it all figured out tomorrow.