2021-22: Freight Frenzy

During our first year we focused on learning the basics of FTC and understanding how the Control Hub, Java, and the overall game worked. For this year we were mentored by a couple of old members of Escape Velocity, and with their help we worked on a simple 4 wheel drive that had a arm that would lift and pick up items from the rolling intake on the bottom and then it would lock into a box to be deposited into the towers for scoring.

2022-23: Power PlayThis was a huge year for learning, as all but one of the older members graduated the team. This left a lot of independence and leadership oppurtunities for the at the time, 8th graders to push the team forward and learn how to build a functional robot. We created a 5 wheel omnidirectional drive, the only one in the entire world. We had a linear slide that brought the plunger up and down to grab cones and score them up to 3 feet high. To improve it for the state championship, we added a pivot to reduce the amount of movement needed in the autonomous period.2023-24: CENTERSTAGE

This was another big year, exploring more about both build and programming. We built 2 robots, one for the earlier league meets and one for the interleagues and state championships. They both had a differential swerve drive, a rarely used drivetrain that allows more power in all directions of movement than the very common mecanum. The first robot had an active intake to effectively scoop up the pixels and a bucket as well as linear slides to score high up on the board. The second one was created becasue the first one while good, it was heavy and so big, it scraped the walls of the sizing box! The second one was lighter, more compact, and could extend out across almost the entire field. It had a claw that could detect pixels and slide over them to grab onto them.