Blog

World Championships Day Two

Today we completed three more of our matches, performing a lot better than yesterday! We had a high score of 189 points! We were able to showcase not only our strength in scoring in the Shared hub while playing defence, but also to spin and score the ducks at the same time!

Scoring in the Alliance Hub, preparing to spin Ducks.

All of our team members also had some personal highlights from today’s event:
Amren: “I liked the kimchi fries and experience of Field Coaches and want to be able to pass the knowledge to younger team members. Specifically, practice everything you want the robot to do. It doesn’t matter how simple it seems, practice it! Now I understand how important it is to have someone watching the field and making decisions.”
Bryce: “It was great to talk to a team who we could relate to easily since they had an extending arm so we could talk about the woes of wiring moving arms.”
Hanson: “It was great to see some of the expos in the innovation fair, especially worth noting a mini copy of the Internation Space Station, which is able to mimic the ISS in real-time.”
Ishaan: “I liked listening to the Rap songs from different teams. They get a $100 gift certificate from our sponsor Actuonix.”
Jackson: “I liked looking at FRC, it’s bigger, louder, but the rules seem simpler and not as many points.”

Afterwards, our team decided to continue to try out amazing Houston Food! With Truffle Fries, Pasta, and Pizza, all in a Texas Style. And of course, with lots of work, comes with lots of fun:

The team stares into the future!

We have a match first thing in the morning, and we can’t wait to get started!

World Championships Day One

Today we had our first day of the World Championships! We went through judging, set up our pit, and saw an absolutely amazing opening ceremony!

Meeting with other people in our pit

We were able to meet many teams from over 15 different countries at the event, everyone with a unique approach to this year’s challenge.

We also got to play our first match of the competition, we were able to learn about the new issues that we have never encountered before at BC Championships, and we are ready to improve for the next ones.

Resting in the Pool after a long day!

After a long day, we decided to relax in the pool, mess around, having a bit of fun, before calling it a night.

If you are interested in watching the matches, you can watch them here on twitch, our match schedule is:
1. 20, Red 1
2. 39, Red 2
3. 52, Blue 2
4. 76, Blue 1
5. 96, Blue 1
6. 113, Red 1
7. 137, Red 2
8. 156, Blue 2

We can’t wait to play more matches, and see more of what this event has to offer!

24 Hours until Worlds!

It has all been leading up to this moment, everyone working together to design, build, and program the robot. Volunteering and organizing Outreach and Connect events, competing in scrimmages, and BC Championships, all to get to… The World Championships!

Packing up the Field and Robot

As we prepare to leave for our flight, we prepare to transport our robot, pack up our field, and prepare. In the past three years, FIX IT has qualified for the World Championships but never had a chance to compete due to Covid-19. For all of our team members, it will be our first time at the World Championships!

Thank you to the VI-Tech Park for providing us with a space to set up a field. We’ll miss our temporary digs in Mystic Beach!

We are all excited, and can’t wait to meet teams from all over the world. Safe travels to everyone!

BC Championships

On Feb. 26, 2022, 3491 FIX IT competed in the first in-person Championships in over two years! It was held at at Khalsa Secondary School in Surrey. For some of our team members, this event was their first live competition.

Overall, we came 17th place out of 28, having a total point score of 404, averaging 80.8pts per match.

Here is a link to see our matches
Qualification 7 (122pts): https://youtu.be/whrDSbxTY5I?t=8118
Qualification 10 (80pts): https://youtu.be/whrDSbxTY5I?t=9133
Qualification 18 (40pts): https://youtu.be/whrDSbxTY5I?t=11950
Qualification 24 (76pts): https://youtu.be/whrDSbxTY5I?t=13903
Qualification 34 (86pts): https://youtu.be/whrDSbxTY5I?t=16817

BC Championships – Think Award

We learned a lot from the competion, regarding our strengths and weaknesses. But more importantly, we were able to meet many teams from around BC that we haven’t met, or seen for a long time!

We won the Think award, and was the second place Inspire Award, providing us a ticket to the World Championships!

We all had a lot of fun, and we are excited to compete at the World Championships.

BC Victoria Scrimmage One

On Nov. 20, 2021, 3491 FIX IT competed in the first live FTC scrimmage in over a year and a half! It was great to get back to in-person matches playing FREIGHT-FRENZY, and meeting the teams for a very fun Scrimmage!

We had a good first scrimmage, with an average score of 75.2 pts each match, and the highest score in the scrimmage of 177 points!

Here is a link to see our matches
Qualification 2 (39pts): https://youtu.be/OrQ_Iitlqe8?t=966
Qualification 3 (17pts): https://youtu.be/OrQ_Iitlqe8?t=1775
Qualification 4 (66pts): https://youtu.be/OrQ_Iitlqe8?t=2602
Qualification 5 (177pts): https://youtu.be/OrQ_Iitlqe8?t=3122
Qualification 4 (77pts): https://youtu.be/OrQ_Iitlqe8?t=4860

We had a lot of fun at this first scrimmage and it was great to see the other teams and their robots. We are excited for the next events.

Asia Pacific Open Championships

Earlier this month, FIX IT competed in the Asia Pacific Open Championships hosted virtually from Australia. We all had a lot of fun in the competition, learning about many team’s extremely impressive mechanisms, and being able to experience competing with an alliance partner!

In this competition, Beyonce held her own! Our Autonomous program works very consistently, we are always able to score Wobble Goals in the drop zone when needed, and we can effectively collect and shoot rings in both the high goal and power shots!

The links to watch the previous live streams are available below:
Opening Ceremony
Matches Day 1
Matches Day 2
Closing Ceremony

Throughout this journey, we were contacted by two new networks – Chek News, and the Times Colonist, for a story!

On Chek News, we were featured in the 6 pm news!
In the Times Colonist, we were featured on their front page!

At the end of this event, we placed 17th in the competition. We all had a lot of fun, and we hope to do it again next year.

BC Championships – Season Wrap-up

BC Championships marked the end of the season for FIX IT. Although this year was challenging for everyone, we persevered; working together to build the best robot we could, and constantly improving our robot over time. Even though the pandemic has separated us physically, we continued to reach out to other teams and communities. We created and led workshops, while continuing to connect with companies such as Boston Dynamics and Battlesnake.

And in the end, this would all pay off in BC Championships…

This year gave us many firsts, both good and bad.

In FIX IT’s 12 year history, it was the first year we didn’t get to travel to and compete in Washington; the first year that we didn’t get to meet other teams in person.

It was also the first time we won the Inspire award in BC, and the first time we were part of creating a network in which all BC teams can communicate together – helping each other through the season, from giving each other advice to improve their robot, to providing outreach opportunities for other teams.

It’s almost time for our two seniors, Ines and Mythri, to leave the team. We’ll miss them, but hope to see them as Alumni volunteers at events!

With the season now finished, we’re planning on how to develop our skills this summer, reaching out to our community and connecting with other companies, as we prepare for next season. And we defintely need to find some girls to join our team. ( And wishing for a Water Game! )

BC League 5

League 5 is the final FIRST Tech Challenge league event in British Columbia, and it was a success! All of our team members at the workshop did an amazing job during practice and during scoring matches.

Beyonce didn’t have any mechanical issues, but it was clear that we need more driver practice.

Picture of our robot, Beyonce, in March 2021

As a part of Fair Play, we recorded all of our matches, available for everyone to see on YouTube.

We are all excited for Wednesday, the Virtual Pits with League Wrap-up. We’ll see how we did compared to other teams around British Columbia.

Scrimmage

Today we were invited to a Remote Scrimmage with High Definition and RoboEclipse. 

High Definition has a carbon fibre drive train and can shoot quickly. They have a big arm for the wobble goal and collecting and shooting is done in a linear path.

Robo Eclipse 11138 has a really cool like triangular arm and lots of quick shooting.

We then played some matches. It was a little difficult getting the match up and started, but we managed to do it! Every other team seems to have the same struggles anyways; whether that was randomization or autonomous and it took the full 2 hours to get through all the teams. The lag on discord also made some matches harder to watch.

It was a fun day and chance to see more FTC people.

FIX IT is a Fair Play team

What is Fair Play?

Fair play is a new program for FIRST Tech Challenge teams It was started by Mark Eldeman to “provide encouragement (and maybe a bit of extra incentive) to “do the right thing.”

In order to be a Fair Play team, a team must be:

  1. Honest
  2. Transparent
  3. As a team, take the Fair Play for FTC pledge

Fair Play teams will publish robot match videos with scores and encourage comments and feedback from other FTC teams. It’s a great way for all teams to get better at scoring their own robot matches this season.

For more information regarding the Fair Play initiative, please visit:
https://firstroboticsbc.org/ftc/fair-play/