3:33 p.m.
Our team and The Strikers have been in a tug-of-war battle for the seventh slot all week.
Of course, not knowing the total points that we accumulated until after has us all on edge. Especially in the pits. On the other side of the grey curtain divider, the forty-four 15x15x15 foot spaces each team was allocated to maintain our robots are less spacious than you'd think.
"Where's the ethernet? Faith and I need to do a systems check." Aidan calls from under the elevator mechanism. Hunter holds the blue cable behind him, and Aidan takes it, plugging one end into the roboRio and the other into the drive station computer. "Thanks."
Hunter continues to work on the spare intake motor without turning around. "Mhmm."
Clicking the last quick-release pin into place to secure the green bumpers, I hang the orange bumpers up from our previous match on the edge of the road case and hit the circuit breaker, powering on the robot.
"Enabling the robot!" Aidan calls, warning us to stay clear. I join him in front of the robot cart, picking up the Xbox controller. Pressing my foot on the handle, the base of the scissor lift cart moves up. Marcus moves under, ready to check the drivetrain. The orange status light blinks steadily, confirming the robot's connection from the computer to roboRio.
"Forward," Marcus calls from the bottom of the cart. Aidan pushes both joysticks forward.
"Backward." He pulls them towards him.
"Right turn." Left joystick push, right joystick pull.
"Left turn." Right joystick push, left joystick pull.
"Low gear." He pushes both joysticks forward and taps the left joystick trigger once.
"High gear." Still pushing both joysticks, Aidan taps the left joystick trigger twice, and a click sounds, signifying a successful switch.
With a grunt, Marcus gets up and shifts to the front of the robot. "Faith, starting robot configuration."
I tap the left-back trigger on the controller. The elevator cascades down to the lowest level, and the intake pulls upwards.
"Stage one." I tap the X button. The elevator moves up two feet.
Marcus grabs a spare keycard and foam ball from the tote. "Flywheel." Aidan holds the right joystick trigger, and the black compression wheels reach optimum speed, along with the uptake bands.
"Intake." I hit the Y button, and Marcus loads the ball; it travels up and out of the robot via flywheel.
Marcus catches it and tosses it back into the tote. "Intake again." He loads the keycard near the bands, and with a swift motion, the claws clamp around the card, signifying a successful limit switch detection. I tap the right-back trigger, releasing the card, and Marcus catches it.
"Atlas Runners, your match is coming up. Please make your way to the queueing area soon," the PA system sounds.
I look at the live match feed. They're just now resetting the field for match 73. "We should probably wrap this up."
Marcus agrees. "Point taken. Faith, go to stage two for me." I tap the B button, and the mechanism goes up two more feet.
"Stage three." I click the A button, and it goes up to the highest stage, the total height towering over all of us.
"Climber." I hit the left-back trigger button, setting the robot back to its starting position cause there's this thing called high center of gravity, and having the robot we worked so hard on crash would not be a good thing. Once in a stable position, I tap the left front trigger once to deploy the climbing mechanism.
YOU ARE READING
The Silicon Valley Connection
RomanceCollege junior Faith Sommers is all about processes--a series of steps followed (sometimes often repeated) in order to yield a certain result. As an aspiring astronaut, the founder of her own tech company, and a full-time engineering student, proced...
