The Washington FIRST robotics competition (FRC) was officially launched this morning with the nation-wide broadcast by NASA of the design of the game and an overview of the rules. We met in the gym of the Montlake Terrace High School where they announced that our region now has 879 teams competing in this year’s competition.
Simultaneously, the rules for this years competition were made available. This year’s competition is called “Arial Assist” and comprises moving a 2′ diameter ball between 3 team’s robots (The Alliances will be formed at random during the event) and placing the ball through either a low target (1 point) or a high target (10 points) at either end of a 54′ x 25′ court.
We were then randomly dispersed into class rooms at the High School where we brainstormed ideas for the competition. My session seemed to focus most on interpretations of the rules and the possible strategies you could use based on these constraints.
Others were more technically based and still others that I heard about from our team members focused more on veterans of FRC competitions comparing this competition to previous ones.
These breakouts lasted until about 11:00 and then it was time for teams to get assistance in actually building their kits. Unfortunately we did not get our parts kit today so we took over a class room to strategize and organize a bit.
Our coach Brian Tugade (in the hat) has been in these competitions before and a few of the team were in his class last year. This is an advantage that many teams do not have and should help ease the process.
We decided that each team member should spend the time between now and next Saturday familiarizing themselves with the rules and thinking of ideas for the competition. We’ll meet again at DigiPen next Saturday to put our ideas together and begin the design process. It will be very important to have ALL the L&E students present at that Saturday afternoon meeting.
Want to know more:
http://frc-manual.usfirst.org/
2014 FIRST Kickoff Broadcast is available on Youtube at the FRCTeamsGlobal channel.
Be sure to check out the technical documents section of the usfirst.org site
jzahir 
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