Category Archives: Ultimate Ascent

ULTIMATE ASCENT

Greater Kansas City Regionals

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Saturday – Day 3

So today we exceeded all of our expectations. We were ranked eighth up until the last match when a team in 14th place jumped up and pushed us back to ninth place. At the alliance selection before lunch, we moved up to become the eighth seeded alliance captain after SWAT was picked by the first ranked team. But when it came to the second seeded alliance selection, The Kuh-nig-its selected us as their first team on their alliance. We were honored to be selected to be on their alliance. We did very good as can be seen on TBA. We made it through elims, quarter, and semi-finals very well. But after the first final match, we noticed we had an issue with one of the victors that was driving one of our drive train wheels when the first finals match ended and we went to grab our robot. That should have pointed out that our victors was bad. We concluded that some metal got in it, and it burnt out when it was open. But our drive team did a great job driving our robot with that issue. We were proud to finish in second place and wish Kuh-nig-its well in St. Louis.

Friday – Day 2

Today was the start of the qualifier matches. We did pretty well, ending up being ranked 15th overall out of 53 teams, not too bad for Day 1. Our 7-disk 42 point auton is meant by only 1 other team, whom is currently in first. We had a match where we lost by 3 points.
At the awards ceremony today, we were greatly surprised and deeply humbled when we were announced as the winner of the Delphi Excellence in Engineering award. The judges noticed our disk pickup, accurate shooter, and drive train. We would like to thank the judges for selecting us to receive this honorable award, along with our fantastic mentors who helped us to design our award winning subsystems.
Once we got back to our mentor’s house, we focused on reviewing scouting results for 4 hours. We finalized our selections/strategy for tomorrow. Our coder also finished a 5 disk auton that works in conjunction with other autons for tomorrow.
We are hoping for a successful day tomorrow. In the mean time, check out our release of Kraken 1.0 along with photos from today.

Thursday – Day 1

I’m going to keep this update kinda short as it’s almost 1 (on Friday). Yesterday we ran practice matches on the robot while perfecting odds and ends to make our robot better and adding some nice led lighting on top as well. Here is the set of photos we shot of robots for our scouting. As promised for other teams, you can find OUR photos here and here.
Check out our LIVE Events Coverage page for match schedules and results and the live stream!

Wednesday – Day 0

We made it to Kansas City! We would first like to thank several people who helped us attend the KC regional. Our transportation sponsor, CIT Signature Transportation, who drove us to Kansas City and are transporting us around Kansas City and back home. We would also like to thank our mentor Corey and his family for accommodating us while we are in Kansas City. Major thanks also goes out to Team 1710 for housing our mentors.
We would also like to thank YOU, our friends, family, parents, sponsors, and fans for keeping up with the team and following us either physically or virtually! Without you, we wouldn’t be a team.
Tomorrow, Day 1, is practice day and fixing up our competition robot. We will also be starting to scout other teams. I will be attending a training to be a part of the KC Regionals Media Relations Team, so look for updates throughout the day on Twitter and Facebook. I will be posting daily updates above at the end of each day, so keep checking back.

Until tomorrow, keep those batteries charged! -David

Team Neutrino attending Greater Kansas City Regional

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Press Release

For Immediate Release
Date: March 12th, 2013
Contact: David Runneals, Co-Captain
E-Mail: david@teamneutrino.org
Web Site: www.teamneutrino.org

Ames, Iowa – Story County’s FIRST Robotic Competition (FRC) 4-H Team Neutrino is attending the Greater Kansas City FRC Regional, March 15th and 16th at Hale Arena. The 120 pound robot that was designed and manufactured by the Story 4-H’ers will compete in the challenges of retrieving and shooting frisbees into goals almost 8 feet in the air and climbing a 7 ½ foot pyramid among other things during the Greater Kansas City Regional and the North Star Regional, March 29th and 30th in Minneapolis.
For more information on the Greater Kansas City Regionals along with details on how you can follow and watch us live, please visit www.teamneutrino.org/kc.
To learn more about Team Neutrino visit www.teamneutrino.org, or for additional Story County 4-H Program information, contact Mary Wilkins, County 4-H Youth Coordinator, by phone 515-382-6551, email mwilkins@iastate.edu, or visit www.extension.iastate.edu/story.

Iowa State University Extension and Outreach programs are available to all without regard to race, color, age, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, sex, marital status, disability, or status as a U.S. veteran.

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About the 2013 Ultimate AscentSM challenge
The 2013 game, ULTIMATE ASCENT, is played between two Alliances of three teams each. Each Alliance competes by trying to score as many flying discs into their goals as possible during the two-minute and 15-second match. Discs scored in higher goals score Alliances more points. Matches end with robots attempting to climb up pyramids located near the middle of the field.
About FIRST®
Accomplished inventor Dean Kamen founded FIRST® (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) in 1989 to inspire an appreciation of science and technology in young people. Based in Manchester, N.H., FIRST designs accessible, innovative programs to build self-confidence, knowledge, and life skills while motivating young people to pursue opportunities in science, technology, and engineering. With support from three out of every five Fortune 500 companies and more than $16 million in college scholarships, the not-for-profit organization hosts the FIRST® Robotics Competition (FRC® ) for students in Grades 9-12; FIRST® Tech Challenge (FTC® ) for Grades 7-12; FIRST® LEGO® League (FLL® ) for Grades 4-8; and Junior FIRST® LEGO® League (Jr.FLL®) for Grades K-3. Gracious Professionalism® is a way of doing things that encourages high-quality work, emphasizes the value of others, and respects individuals and the community. To learn more about FIRST, go to www.usfirst.org.
FRC is an annual competition that helps students to discover the excitement of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and the rewards a career in STEM can bring. Approximately 51,000 high-school students from 16 countries will participate in the 2013 competition.
In 1992, the FIRST Robotics Competition began with 28 teams and a single 14-by-14-foot playing field in a New Hampshire high-school gym. This season, a projected 2,550 teams – including 375 rookie teams – will participate. Fifty eight Regional competitions in the U.S., Canada, and Israel, plus 17 District competitions, one State Championship, and one Region Championship will culminate at the 2013 FIRST Championship at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, April 24-27. FIRST programs are spearheaded by more than 120,000 dedicated Volunteers worldwide, most of them professional engineers, scientists, and teachers who mentor the next generation of innovators.
FIRST and the FIRST logo are registered trademarks of the United States Foundation For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST). LEGO® is a registered trademark of The LEGO Group.

Media Note: Please contact David if you are interested in conducting an interview with the team. They will be in Kansas City, March 13th through March 16th.

Week 9 Updates

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Hello Friends who love Robots,
It’s nearing the end of the week and I just wanted to update you on this week’s activities and detail our first regional next week!

Resetting Kraken for the first time on 3/4/13!

Resetting Kraken for the first time on 3/4/13!

We have been very busy finishing Kraken. We got our Kraken resetter built, and tried it out on Monday night, which was quite nerve wracking once you find out the secrets about Kraken. Kraken works pretty well, although we are going to be finishing it up next week. It also climbed the tower much faster then we all expected.
Week 2 Regionals are going on NOW (if you read this between 3/7/13 and 3/10/13). Go check them out on TBA’s Game Day Page!

OUR Regional Info

The clock is ticking even closer to our very FIRST (hahaha) regional of the year. This year’s FIRST regional is the Week 3 Greater Kansas City Regional. I created a page which I will keep (or try to keep anyway) updated. This page contains links to everything that you need to have to be able to follow us from the time we head down to regionals, to the time when we get back! To visit it, just go to teamneutrino.org/kc, it’s as easy as that!

Early Week 8 Updates: Weeks 1 and 2 Regionals

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Hello! I’ll try to keep it short and sweet this week, since things have been slowing down. I will also start posting the weekly updates on Mondays (and will do more during weeks 3 & 5 regionals). Finally, we will slowly be releasing detailed pages on our robot components (ie. drive train, climbing system, shooting system, etc.). This week, we are releasing our Bumpers!

Monday night was the first time we met since last Tuesday (Bag & Tag Day). We have been busy finishing our practice bot, along with building Kraken during our five work days (Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday). We got ~ 8-9 inches of snow on Tuesday and Wednesday. Thank goodness we only got one big storm during build season.

Today I found this really cool app called FRC Megaphone built by Zach Orr of 2337. This app lets you receive updates via text message (and coming soon, email) that lets you know how we did after each match at our 2 regionals during weeks 3 and 5. To receive updates, follow us on Twitter or Facebook!

Regionals

Since this is Week 1 Regionals, I figured I might share where you can watch FRC matches from the comfort of your own home (aka in your pajamas in front of the fireplace staying warm) tomorrow and Saturday, along with Week 2 Regionals that start on 2/8 and go through 2/9. You can find all the listed details on TBA’s Event page, along with watching live video (and other cool widgets like results and social feeds) on their Game Day page.

Week 7 Updates: Open House and Bag & Tag Day!

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WOW! It’s hard to believe that Bag & Tag day was yesterday Tuesday. Poof! The six week build season went by like the speed of neutrinos. I’m kind of sad that it went by that quick, but I learned so much that I look forward to sharing with my new team next year down in Missouri. As @frcproblemz tweeted yesterday “10 months, 15 days, 9 hours, 8 minutes, and 22 seconds until the 2014 build season #countdown #frcproblemz” we too are counting down to 2014! 🙂
This week’s update is shorter then usual, as the shop is closed until next Monday to allow students to relax and catch up on some much needed sleep.

Sunday

Today we drove the robot around, our driver and button monkey got practice driving and shooting. In Auton, we scored a perfect 7 frisbees (of course that had to be the one time when no one was recording it). We also had human defensive bots sliding around on chairs (which was very, very fun).

Monday

Tonight we had our open house for our parents, sponsors, and community to see the work we have been doing the past 6 weeks. We also gave tours of Boyd Lab and Mechatronics Lab to those who attended.

Tuesday

Bag & Tag night! We continued driver practice tonight along with our shooter angle. The shop was also busy, making spare parts to be included in our bag.

Saturday

We are getting a tour at our sponsor Sauer-Danfoss today.