http://naterad.com/robotics/botball is where you can find this year’s Botball Point Counter and Code Writer, written by Nate Radebaugh.
You will need the username and password so check your email, I sent it out at some point. Otherwise, send me an email and I’ll let you know the login information.
This past week the Hampton Robotics club participated in the 7th annual Global Conference on Educational Robotics and the Botball National competition. After attending many educational sessions on robotics and technology as a whole, the team competed in Seeding and Double-Elimination.
Although the team was unable to rank in the top of these two competitions, the club proudly brought home a Judges Choice award for “Best Use of Supplemental Software” for the programming and organizational tools the team created with the members’ new respect for time management and organization in documentation.
This trip was a worthwhile experience for all involved, including the students, who respectively represented Hampton in an international setting through each members’ help not only in helping to set up boards and materials for the competition itself, but also in helping less experienced teams with guidance and advice.
Thank you to all involved in making this year’s competition successful,
Nate Radebaugh, Robotics Club President 07-08
Our team has been preparing daily for this year’s national Botball conference in Norman, Oklahoma. We have created our two robots and employed revolutionary functions, tools, and skillsets that can only be found in Hampton High School’s Botball team! With our adaptive experience and drive to excel, we hope to outperform many teams at the conference.
Results will be posted on this website after the competition.
Last night, our members met to make changes to the robot to get more points more consistently. All active members excluding Alex and Nate were present. The changes resulted in hours of work attempting to get the robot named “Jafar” to knock all the cups off of the table. This whole robot was eventually scrapped. However, the roomba robot’s shovel was fully reconstructed and designed to use three basket areas instead of the single basket as originally planned. This was George’s idea. With the robot completed, it consistently scored how we expected it to.
At the competition, we took first place in the seeding round with an average score of 50.5 points. We went on to take second place in documentation. In double-elimination, attempting to get more points by knocking off cups, our robot performed differently than expected and we ended up only getting third place in double-elimination. We did, however, end up getting FIRST PLACE OVERALL.
This year’s team fared much better than last year’s team, where we got 3rd place overall. Hampton’s Botball team hopes to go to nationals this summer in Norman Oklahoma. We are always accepting sponsors. Please contact us for more information regarding sponsorships. The entire team is very pleased with how well we did this year.
Today Anthony, Jeff, and Nate met to work on the robots.
Jeff focussed on getting the conveyor belt to function properly for the roomba robot. Although it still does not work correctly, much progress was made.
Anthony experimented with a free-standing structure to effectively cause difficulty for the other team.
Nate took the functions Anthony had made previously and made them more effective and communicable. Similarly, new functions were added to add ease to programming when design has completed.
Plans were made to meet either Monday or Tuesday to ascertain which parts are needed for, and to construct the game board. The meeting is to take place at the high school.
All important documentation has been completed.
Official website has been launched.
The Botball season has begun!
After much deliberation between the top three choices, the winner of our design for this year will have a push-lawnmower type of weapon.
1, 2, and 4 were chosen as possible designs. Please describe how you think each will work.
