Interesting Mechanisms – 2024

It’s great to see all the robots that different teams brought to Worlds. Here are some of our favourites.

Leo: 14179 Sushi Squad
3 stage stacked claw that was designed to only pick up 2 pixels by squishing other pixels out.

Ryan: 18139 Rebel Robotics
Their robot has a compact tape measure rolling arm. It allows for minimal space to be occupied while having long reach.  The material of the ‘tape’ rolls into a tube as it extends out from the robot.

Jason: 11754  EnergySmart FTC
Their claw had a unique design, similar to ours, but instead of having a side-by-side centerpost with pincers mechanism, they had a mold like thing that would grasp all around their pixels. It would hold one pixel in the front and one in the back with two of our claws on each side; as if they were pincers; that could rotate around a wrist, making it in any orientation possible. The wrist would allow the pixels to be placed horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. In addition their arm can extend to ~3 ft.

Max: 11228 OverClucked Bots
Really cool scoring mechanism. It pinches the inside of a pixel and releases with a servo. 

Jasper: 18031 Horcruxes
Mostly made their own frame, not much channel or bought parts. Might have been expensive.

Kai: 11039 Innov8rz
I saw a super helpful mechanism which I want to try playing around with. It’s called a husky lens and it’s a AI training tool. The mechanism has a chip for training AI models and a small 2 inch IPS display so all the training can be done without a separate computer on the small display.  



FIX IT is heading to FTC World Championships

It’s exciting to win the BC FTC Championships and find out your team has qualified for Worlds!

But then the planning starts. How do you all get there? Where will you stay? How do you improve your robot to make it ready for World Championships? How are we going to pay for everything?

Fortunately, our season plan started with a complete game analysis and robot strategy with improvements for each of our events. We already knew what we’d need to change to be ready for Worlds.

Our robot, Captain Hook, now has a much for effective claw and an extending are which should double our scoring in tele-op.

Our other priority is fundraising! If you’d like to support our team, please check out our GoFundMe. If you know a company who might want to sponsor the team, please contact us with the information.

Follow our journey in at World Championships on our website. We’ll be making new posts each day.

Team FIX IT – BC Championship – Inspire Award

BC Championships 2024

FIX IT was in the BC FIRST Tech Challenge Championships held in Surrey BC.   The top 24 teams from British Columbia and the Yukon were competing.   

Some of the highlights for our team were:

  • playing in the highest scoring match of the Qualifying Rounds. With Guild of Builders, we got a high score of game of 220 points including a 100 point perfect autonomous.
  • we had fun hanging out with other teams at the social on Saturday night.
  • thanks to FTC 18841 KSS One for choosing us to be on their Alliance.
  • Mecha mustangs had a really cool under glow on their robot. 

Of course, winning Inspire was our favourite moment of the day.

FIX IT will be competing at the FIRST World Championships in Houston Texas on April 17-20, 2024. Check out our Go Fund Me to help or contact us if you have a suggestion about a company who could sponsor our team.

November Scrimmage

On November 18, FIX IT was part of a CENTERSTAGE Scrimmage hosted by St. Margaret’s School in Victoria. It was our first event of the season, and the first ever event for two of our three drive team members!

Overall, we had a strong autonomous program that worked in most matches. Our robot could hang in end game. Unfortunately, our drone launcher lost the drone during the matches.

Our robot, Captain Hook, is very fast on the field. Even with a rookie driver, it was able to score lots of pixels in the backstage.