2012 Robotics.

For the past four years I have been involved in Robocup junior at a regional, state and national level. The first year I did Robocup I was in grade 8 and it was the first time I had ever been involved in robotics. Being a builder type person, my robot was the best and toughest in my robotics class. Unfortunately that was my first time programming so whilst our teams robot was good, it had a rubbish programme on it and we came dead last in the competition. That was probably a good thing in an odd way because it taught us how competitive these events are and how good your robots have to be. All of this made me work harder and the next year when I paired up with my now good friend John, who is amazing at everything by the way, we came just THIRD in the state titles. The first year I did Robocup I did soccer but the second year I did rescue. Robot soccer is pretty self-explanatory but rescue is a bit tricky. Basically the robot must follow a black line on a white mat and negotiate a series of obstacles on the way. Once it gets to the end of the course it then has to pick up a soft drink can and place it on top of a 70mm high block of wood, and of course points are awarded along the way for completing the sections. It’s harder than it sounds! Trust me!  Last year I paired up with John again and we did really well, we won the state competition and came fifth at the nationals. This year we brought two more people onto the team and with guidance from the other three; I built the robot that you see here. It is a very far cry from the Lego robots we built in previous years and it was the best robot at the national competition, I know this because our team won the engineering award which consists of a $2000 scholarship each to an engineering university. Unfortunately the award was only open to grade 12’s, they were all in grade 12, I was in grade 11, which is a bit unfair really considering I BUILT THE WHOLE DAMN ROBOT!  So, they owe me big time. The rules state that each team must write a logbook of the robots construction and I've put mine on Google doc’s which you can view at the link.  As far as the competition went, we didn't go very well at all, because whilst the robot is very very very good (not my words) and our programmer had written an amazing programme  there were some tricky technical issues with the sensors which we simply could not overcome. That was quite disappointing and also quite embarrassing because the robot looks so good but its performance was pretty poor. In summery I enjoyed the whole experience, it was great to have a piece of engineering that I created win an award. That was a very proud moment. I also enjoyed working with the others on the team; I genuinely believe that all four of us are something special.

Look at the logbook!