2023 Season Recap

Summary

The 2023 FRC Season “Charged Up!” is now complete. Automated Amphibians are proud to have competed at the Michigan State Championship and the World Championship in Houston.

We were proudly featured as part of the front page of April 27th edition the Novi Note.

We were also caught on local news in a clip tumbling at the beginning of the video (before we were able to add weights to our robot to increase stability). Our alliance partner drive coach Jordan Legue of the Flushing Raiders Robotics (5561) did a great job in an interview shortly following our clip.

Check out this video to see our robot in action:

Build Recap

Since this was the first time any of us had built an FRC robot, progress was quite slow in the beginning. Having the First in Michigan “Virtual Robotics Studio” was very, very helpful. Dan Kimura was an excellent guide through some of the trickier bits. Since we were merging everybot on top of a swerve, we utilized Autodesk Inventor to create a CAD model of the mating of our SDS based frame with the everybot on top.

With two weeks to go before the Kettering competition, we barely had a a functioning chassis bot. While it was looking grim, the team pulled together and we put together a robot that performed well.

We were 6-6 in qualifiers, and were selected for the 7th alliance. We fell just short of the finals, placing 3rd overall in the playoffs.

Kettering

Livonia

For the Livonia competition we updated the robot with weights to give it a lower center of gravity and improved the overall speed and reliability of the intake. Instead of placing 5 game pieces, we were able to reach 6 and 7 game pieces per game. We also were able to get a balance routine working near the end of qualifying matches.

At one point during the qualifying we ran into a snapped hard stop and simultaneously a shredded can wire, but thanks to the quick work of many hands on the team, we were able to get back up and running in under 30 minutes which was the gap before the next match.

After qualifying we were ranked 11th, and selected as part of the 5th alliance. We fell just short of the finals again, placing 3rd overall in the playoffs.

Michigan State Championships

This was the first state competition 8426 had been to, and the first for all of our “rookie” students and mentors. Qualifying went very smoothly with no mechanical or electrical glitches.

After going 7-5 in qualifying we were ranked 11th, and selected as the third robot in the 2nd alliance. For the third time in a row, we fell just short of the finals, placing third overall in the playoffs.

FRC Worlds Championship in Houston

Just getting to Worlds is was an exciting accomplishment for everyone on the team. The very best teams compete in 8 large divisions. We were placed in the Curie division. Despite a number of minor glitches, we competed well and ended up 5-5 in our qualifying matches. Again, while we were not selected for the playoffs, to compete at such a high level and still find ourselves ranked in the middle of the pack was a great start for a group of 8-9th grade first timers.

Plans for "offseason"

One of our planned upgrades is to add an Orange Pi performing machine vision in order to help orient the robot. We are also in the progress of adding a ground intake. This will help us to achieve our goals and maximize the performance of our robot.

We are looking to compete in the June Taylor “Big Bang” competition as well as the Bloomfield Girls Competition in October.

We also are putting together a lessons learned article and a presentation for our most recent sponsors Nachi Robotics.

https://www.thebluealliance.com/team/8426