The robotics club has been working hard since the spring of last school year on the new competition “Over Under”. Now likely most readers have never heard of Over Under, so I’ll explain. There are two large goals on either side of the field, robots want to score triballs (a 4 sided pyramid with triangular faces). At the end of the match, robots can also hang from posts along the middle of the field to gain extra points. The first competition just happened on November 18th, so let's take a deeper dive into it.
The first competition was hosted at York High School, and each of the Yarmouth teams had a pretty good day. The first team to talk about is team 1764A, they had a design where they launched triballs across the field with a flywheel (fast-spinning wheel). They had great success in the qualifying rounds, going 5-1 and ranking 4th of 38! They also won the Design Award due to their amazing notebook (where you document the steps you went through to make the robot) and interview, putting them in the state championship! The next team to mention is 1764C, they had a very complex design which meant that while getting parts working, they also played effectively and flexibly with the parts of their robot that worked throughout the day. They finished with a 4-2 record, earning themselves the 11th rank. Their spectacular code impressed the judges, which got them the Think Award (which is given to a team with good code behind the robot).
Next on the list is team 1764X, who also had a flywheel to launch triballs across the field. They had a grand day, after revising part of their robot they pulled off a 4-2 record, this gave them the 16th seed. Their spirit and enthusiasm earned them the Energy Award and their hard work towards the skills challenge gained them 2nd place in skills with 210 points! For those of you who don’t know, skills is where you are given 1 minute to score as many points as possible. Finally, is team 1764Y, which had a basic design to push triballs with pneumatic wings (pneumatics are pistons that extend and retract when air comes in and out of them). They had good qualifying matches, going 5-1, earning them the 6th seed. While A&Y didn’t make it past round 1, and C&X didn’t make it through round 2, the tournament was still good and will lead the teams to be even better at the next competition.
