 FHS team members had a first place finish for their amazing "tuna mobile" (i.e., tuna cans were used for weights to balance and steady the robot) engineering design programmed in Java.
Even though each individual team member had decided upon their role as a programmer or a construction design engineer, they all contributed to the programming and design. Their ultimate success was due to the combined efforts of the entire team, according to sponsor Annette Walter.
Lead Programmer was Ben Braun with Assistant Programmer Andrew Wiley, Lead Design Engineer Ben Cuadra, and Assistant Design Engineer Noah Kessler.
In the contest, the robot had only two minutes to collect as many wiffle balls as possible and place them in small cups at the front of the competition board. If time was still available, it could also pick up extraneous balls and place them on a black ring encircled by 1/2 inch tubing to accumulate more points.
With the obstacle of the tubing, the team designed a lifting and "scooping" device that could handle dumping the balls in the cups as well as scooping up others and dumping them in the black ring.
“We will be heading to the State competition in May where we will be competing with the best teams across Texas. Meanwhile, the team will be fine-tuning the tuna mobile,” Walter said. |
