Robotics students, mentors, and volunteers have six weeks to build a soccer-playing robot, and the clock started this past Saturday.
‘It’s definitely going to be a lot harder this year,? says Josh Fox, a four year veteran of Clarkston High School’s Team RUSH and team captain. ‘I’m glad we have so many people on the team this year who play soccer.?
Saturday’s FIRST Robotics Competition Kickoff unveiled the new game and marked the beginning of six-week Build Season, during which teams learn the game, strategy, and design, prototype, and build a robot to compete.
This year’s game, called Breakaway, is played on a 27-by-54 foot carpeted field, with goals in each corner, sectioned off into thirds by bumps. Objective of the game is for each alliance, each made up of three robots, to score soccer balls on their own colored goal. Human players return the balls into play.
At the end of the game, robots can earn bonus points by hoisting themselves up onto a tower, or hanging from the railing or other robots.
Team RUSH (Respect, Unity, Spirit, and Heart) spent the first four hours of build season learning how to play the game. Part of the challenge of FIRST (For Inspiration And Recognition of Science and Technology) is learning to play as a team, fostering teamwork right from the start. Team RUSH will take the next week to decide how to best play the game and design a robot to compete.
After discussion, the team decided the main challenge is how to kick or hit the soccer balls accurately, as there are just so many ways to kick a ball.
Team RUSH competes at the Kettering District Competition, Kettering University in Flint, on March 5-6, and Detroit District Competition at Wayne State University on March 19-20.