The Gunston Robotics Team competed in a regional FTC qualifier in Columbia MD this past Sunday. This was their second and final tournament for the year, and they showed strong progress since the January tournament in Annapolis.

 

The team won three out of five matches, finished 13th out of 36 teams competing, and increased their average score by a factor of seven over their average in Annapolis. During the competition, Noah Friel and Robert Crow controlled the robot as it built towers out of large Lego like bricks. Owen White coached the drivers and Josh Sanford was the “human player” who introduced new bricks onto the playing field when needed.

 

After building towers, the robot placed a team capstone on top, which was designed by Ron Liu and printed by Liu and Crow. Will Newberg and Jonathan Choi wrote and polished the Java code that controlled the robot during the autonomous phase of the competition. During autonomous, the robot identified a particular block out of a group of three, transported it under a bridge to reach the opposite side of the field, placed it on a foundation, and then dragged the foundation onto the building site. 

 

To perform these complex tasks the robot had to sense its environment and adjust to unexpected events in real time; during one match it performed all these tasks perfectly. The team is proud of the progress they've made between their two competitions this year and are eager to get started on next year’s robot!