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FIRST 2005 Season: Triple Play

FRC 2005
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Contents

The Season

The game for the 2005 season of the US FIRST season was called "Triple Play". This game featured the first 3v3 competition, compared to the usual 2v2 game. Almost 1000 teams competed in 30 competitions; as many as 25,000 high school students participated this year.

The Field

Around the field there are 9 neutral goals. At the beginning of each match, 4 "vision tetras" were placed at random around the field. They were like a standard tetra, with an additional green band that could be located by the CmuCam. In each of the 4 corners, there is a "hanging tetra". The hanging tetra was attached to the goal by one weak magnet. At the end of the autonomous period (explained in detail later), if the hanging tetras had not been knocked down, they were removed by field personnel. On each side of the field were "loading zones". One side had an "auto loader", where one tetra was placed on a platform that robots could pick up entirely on their own. On the other side was a "human loader". This was a triangle onto which a robot could drive, and then a team's human player could run and place a tetra from its stack onto the robot, and run back to a pressure sensitive pad that enabled and disabled the robot. At each end of the field were colored lines, if all three robots from an alliance were behind that line at the end of the 2 minutes, the alliance would receive an additional 10-point bonus.

The Game

This game featured two alliances (red and blue) made up of three teams each.

Autonomous Mode

At the beginning of each game, there was a 15-second "autonomous" period. During this period the robot must run under pre-written code. The robot can do several things during this time. One option is to knock down a hanging tetra. One team on an alliance could opt to be given a tetra to place on their robot before the match started. Those teams could cap a goal with the "given tetra". Another option is to drive out and position the robot for human control. Some teams do nothing during autonomous mode. However, the most ambitious teams could use the CmuCam to try to find the "vision tetras". If a team could find, pick up, and cap a vision tetra they received bonus tetra(s) for their efforts too. If they capped the vision tetra on a side goal, they received 1 bonus tetra on the corresponding corner goal. If they capped the vision tetra on the center goal, they received 2 bonus tetras, one on each corner goal. In the entire 2005 season, vision tetras were capped on the side goal less than 10 times, and the center goal was never capped autonomously.

Driver Control

After the 15-second autonomous mode, a 120 second (2 minute) driver control period ensued. The drivers could drive robots to either the auto- or human-load stations to pick up tetra(s). Next, the robots would stack these tetras strategically on one of the 9 goals around the field. An alliance "owned" a goal if their color tetra was the highest tetra scored on that goal. To score a tetra you could either place it under the goal (for 1 point) or "cap" the goal (for 3 points). If a team owned any three goals in a row (of a possible 8 rows) that was a 10 point bonus. This three-in-a-row was called a "Triple Play". If, during play, a red robot "de-scored" a blue tetra, the goal became the permanent property of blue (red could never "own" that goal, no matter how many tetras they put on it). If, during play, a red robot "de-scored" a red tetra, it was tough luck for the red team who lost 3 points and maybe possession of the goal. At the end of the match, any tetras that were touching a robot in any way, shape, or form were disqualified.

Scoring

There were 4 ways to score in Triple Play:

  • Place a tetra underneath a goal 1 point per tetra
  • Place a tetra on top of a goal (cap) 3 points per tetra
  • Make a Triple Play 10 points per Triple Play
  • Have all three alliance members in the end zone 10 points

Need To Know More?

If you want to know more about "Triple Play" and what it consisted of, click here!!!!

How we did

Our team preformed very well this year, we went to four different competitions.

Sacramento Regional

  • Seeded 5th of all Teams
  • 3rd Place Alliance Captains
  • Picked Teams 766 and 1072
  • 1st place overall!

Detroit Regional

  • Seeded 1st of all Teams
  • 1st Place Alliance Captains
  • Picked Teams 217 and 301
  • 1st place overall!

Grand Rapids Regional

  • Seeded 23rd of all Teams
  • Member of 2nd Place alliance
  • Partnered with Teams 27 and 33
  • 2nd place overall

Nationals: Archimedes Division

  • Seeded 1st of 80 Teams
  • 1st Place Alliance Captains
  • Partnered with 217 and 766 (Numbers look familiar?)
  • 1st place overall!
  • Undefeated in Qualifying AND Finals

Nationals: Finals

  • Archimedes: 245 (us), 217, 766 3rd
  • Curie: 175, 33, 108 4th
  • Galileo: 56, 254, 64 2nd
  • Newton: 330, 67, 503 1st

Thanks to all our alliance partners in all our matches! We'd be nowhere without you!

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