2012 OCCRA Foundation Award Winners!

Written by AdamBot Student on December 9, 2012

After a difficult and exciting 2012 OCCRA season, the AdamBots were honored to take home the prestigious Foundation Award for the third year in a row. Read More

OCCRA 2012 Week 5 & Championship Recap

Written by AdamBot Student on November 18, 2012

The OCCRA 2012 season has finally come to a close with the OCCRA Championship held on November 17th at Holly High School. It was a fun competition and learning experience for all of the AdamBots, and we ended it with much success.

The week leading up to the championship was, as always, a hectic one.

The build team made some last-minute modifications to the bot,  including adding some new wheels to improve the traction of the robot and allow for more maneuverability  and scoring success while being pushed around by other robots.

Besides the build and drive team’s usually pre-competition preparations, other teams were also busy at work. New members of the programming team continued to learn how to use java, while the experienced students continued to teach them how to create new code.

The marketing team also began brainstorming ideas for new methods of spreading the team message for the FIRST season. They worked on improving team communication and job management, and created a vague layout of what they wanted to do during FIRST…Read More

OCCRA 2012 Week 4 Recap

Written by AdamBot Student on November 9, 2012

Watch this week’s matches on YouTube!

Although we were only in school for 3 days this past week due to the election, it was an eventful one for the AdamBots.

The build team made some modifications to our robot in the days leading up to our fourth competition on Thursday at Birmingham Seaholm High School. The modifications made were fixes of minor issues. The first was a repair of LEDs that were damaged in the previous competition. The second was the reworking of a set of small flaps attached to the top roller. They were originally added in an attempt to allow the robot to manipulate the green ball, but were not successful in that regard. However, they did increase the distance the yellow balls are launched out of the roller, and that has had a very positive impact on our scoring capability.

The Thursday competition went well for us, though we got our lowest ranking so far this season, coming in third place with 82 points. The matches were some of the most exciting yet, with defensive robots fighting harder than ever. Unfortunately, our robot tipped over during our third game, but the damage was minimal and we were still able to pull off a win, continuing our winning streak. We won all of our matches on Thursday…Read More

OCCRA 2012 Week 3 & Diversity Competition Recap

Written by AdamBot Student on November 4, 2012

The third week of OCCRA was a great one, as we competed in the extremely fun Diversity Showcase Competition at South Lyon East High School in South Lyon, Michigan.

The week leading up to the competition was a busy one, as both girls and mentors were trained to drive the robot in the diversity showcase. Also, many modifications were made to the robot to allow our performance to be as good as possible. Some modifications were made to prevent the robot from losing the chain, and the hands were removed to make sure it stays below the weight limit. Tape was added to the bottom roller to make it easier to pick up balls. More tape was also put across the top of the gripper assembly to cover all sharp edges. The robot also underwent preliminary testing of its capability to manipulate and score the large green ball. We did not score with the green ball during the showcase, but we made some solid attempts and hopefully we will be able to score it in the coming competitions…Read More

OCCRA 2012 Week 2 Recap- 2nd Competition and Road Rally

Written by AdamBot Student on October 30, 2012

The second week of OCCRA competitions and other activities went well for the AdamBots. On Thursday, October 25th, we competed in the second OCCRA competition at Waterford Kettering High School.

In our first match, the chain, which is used to lift the game balls, broke.  Luckily, we quickly got them fixed, and ultimately we placed second, with Royal Oak High School Team 1188 taking first place by a close margin. We also won the technical excellence award. In our four matches, our alliances broke the high scoring record, a record we previously held, twice. Our new high score was 27 points. Our next competition will be on November 3rd at South Lyon High School.

Click here to see photos from our 2012 OCCRA competitions.

Back at Adams, sub-teams have been working on projects of their own…Read More

October 20th OCCRA Competition Recap

Written by AdamBot Student on October 22, 2012

This Saturday, October 20, the AdamBots competed in the first competition of the 2012 OCCRA season. It was a success- we won 1st place and were awarded the strategic design award.

The AdamBots hosted the competition at Stoney Creek High School, one of the two high schools that AdamBots students attend. Students and mentors were at the school as early as 6:45 am to help set up the field, and we also helped in concessions and with running the placebo robot…Read More

2012 OCCRA Build Season Recap

Written by AdamBot Student on October 21, 2012

Back after a very successful summer, when we were part of the winning alliance at the Indiana Robotics Invitational, the AdamBots started the year with one of our biggest teams ever, and quickly started to prepare for the 2012 OCCRA game: Goal Roll.

The game revolves around getting balls into towers, some of which are stationary and some of which can be moved around the field. We have created a robot that has an extendable mechanism to transfer the balls and that can collect and score efficiently.

Designing and building the robot was, as always, a difficult and interesting process, but the build, programming and CAD teams were able to work together and create a winning design for our OCCRA robot.

Dozens of AdamBots collaborated to construct our bot, and in the process students, both veteran and new, learned a lot about engineering and strategy. Also, the many new students (making a 90+ student team!)  participated, on Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout the build season, in workshops that deal with all aspects of engineering.

Sub-team leaders and veterans have also worked to educate each other on the different responsibilities and processes that their sub-teams have…. Read More