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.  



Competition Day 3 – 2024

There’s no question that the surprise of the day was waiting in our Pit this morning. It is very much appreciated by all team members and especially the parents who do Pit Sitting for us!

We were visited by some judges. It was a great opportunity to show off our amazing posters!

Unfortunately, our matches didn’t go as well as we’d hoped. After one particularly rough match, our whole centerpost structure needed to be replaced with almost no time before our next match. Fortunately the team got it on in time, but it wasn’t fully functioning until the next match. At least we had a spare (“thanks Doug”)!

Our mascot finally put in an appearance today on Tiara Friday.

Competition Day 2 – 2024

The team had a very early start to the day playing in the first match of the morning! We were able to get a picture of the team between matches.

Dryw is an old fried of FIX IT who is now working for SparkFun. He came by to show us a new optical encoder that he’s been developing. Likely it will be available in May, in time for testing over the summer.

Kai with Dryw from SparkFun

Here are our results so far.

Match #RedBlueScore
Qualification 220279
19964
8872
3491
124:149
Qualification 1522708
14179
3491
10355
214:239
Qualification 3116008
3491
10138
25
68:161
Qualification 4710255
11112
3491
6294
238:182
Qualification 583491
22801
18031
8641
149:244
Qualification 7714793
9974
11228
3491
276:204
Qualification 9711148
3491
11754
18549
Qualification 1103491
11039
310
7842
Qualification 1207105
3491
10829
16417
Qualification 13223350
19706
3491
8610
Match Results

Unfortunately, our first two wins were followed by four losses. The good news is the robot was working well at the end of the day, and there’s still more matches tomorrow.

Competition Day 1 – 2024

The robot cart finally came today and we were able to finish setting up our pit. We also got some fancy green lights for our banner! We also got to play our first match and we even won!!!



Judging seemed to go well and they were interested in what we’d been doing this season.

Kai: I was so surprised when they told us we needed to reinspect our team prop, we never got told anything about it before and now we might need to change it. Auto’s gonna be rough  

Max: I’m glad we won our first match. Off to a good start!

Leo: I did my first scouting today and I’m excited for more!

Here’s our list of matches for the Thursday and Friday.

Match #RedBlueScore
Qualification 220279
19964
8872
3491
124:149
Qualification 1522708
14179
3491
10355
Qualification 3116008
3491
10138
25
Qualification 4710255
11112
3491
6294
Qualification 583491
22801
18031
8641
Qualification 7714793
9974
11228
3491
Qualification 9711148
3491
11754
18549
Qualification 1103491
11039
310
7842
Qualification 1207105
3491
10829
16417
Qualification 13223350
19706
3491
8610



Thanks to Kristina for the twinkling lights in our pit!

Day in Houston

Our robot, Captain Hook, arrived safely in Houston last night and right now we are unpacking it and testing every feature. We are preparing Captain Hook for competition tomorrow!

Cool things from the Pits

Jasper: We saw our team name in the FTC Hall of Fame, which I thought was really cool because its cool to see the past accomplishments of our team! 

Jason: One of the teams had a LEGO globe which teams can place a flag on where there from.

Leo: A team had a tape measure giveaway that was in inches and centimeters and it was really useful since I can’t find one when I need it.

Ryan: One of the teams had a super small robot which was really surprising.

Kai: I got to talk about a really interesting experimental technology with a SWERVE alumni from Washington who is now a Sparkfun employee. The technology is an optical version of dead wheels which has a built in IMU and laser which uses sensor merging to get the most accurate results. What was really cool is the technology comes out in May. 

Max: There was a team that had a raffle for a free safari trip to South Africa. I hope I win!

Tonight we went to a Vietnamese restaurant, Huynh, and the food there was fantastic! The Pho and other delicacies tasted really good and I would recommend going there again to any teams going to Worlds.

Arriving at Worlds 2024

FIX IT 3491 arrived in Houston Texas for Worlds yesterday at around 6pm (Houston time)!!!

On our flight to Houston, the pilot made an announcement congratulating us for going to Worlds, and wished us the best of luck! Thanks Sean for making it happen!

During our unpacking in the Hilton hotel, we found a letter from the TSA wishing us the best of luck and saying that they were gentle with our robot, Captain Hook. 

Last night we were out on Discovery Green and we walked around, ate some pizza and had some fun!!!

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

Johnson Space Center, and returning home

Today unfortunately marked the last day of our trip, but it was no less exciting than every other day. We went and visited the NASA Johnson Space Center!

We were able to see everything from a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft used to build the Internation Space Station, a replica Delorean in the exhibition, to seeing the actual control room for the Apollo 11 mission, and seeing all the controls and screens as they were in 1969!

Afterwards, came the sad part of the trip, returning home. We all had so much fun throughout the trip, from meeting teams from all around the world, competing at an amazing event, to visiting a NASA center and seeing the Gulf of Mexico, this was an amazing trip, and we hope to do it again next year.

World Championships Day Four (and last)

Today marked the last day of the World Championships, with absolutely amazing final matches displayed by their amazing robot, teams, and performances, and absolutely stunning finale!

The team preparing to watch the final match!

And although there were teams that won, and lost, we would like to congratulate ALL teams competing at the event throughout the week, and congratulations to all the Dean’s list nominees, finalists, and winners, and a special thank you to all of the fantastic volunteers that make events like this possible, without you, this would never have been possible.

After the event, came the worst part of every trip… Packing. So, our team decided to… Well, see for yourself.

We had an absolutely amazing time at the World Championships, and we hope to be back next year.

Worlds Championships Day Three

Today was the final day of qualification matches, we played the last 4 of our matches, getting a new high score of 221 points! Ending at a ranking of 137 out of 160. But much more importantly, we all had a huge amount of fun, including watching an amazing display of team mascots dancing in front of the fields!

Totally unknown figure in a morph suit.

And of course, following FIRST tradition, we wore a tiara for Tiara Friday!

Unfortunately, we were not picked for the alliance selection, but we would like to congratulate not only everyone in the finals but also every single team for their hard work and dedication, allowing them to compete in the World Championships!

Afterwards, we decided to indulge ourselves in some food trucks at the “Block Party” enjoying some delicious food while sharing stories around the table.

Dinner with the Food Trucks!

We ended the day with another swim and some card games, and we all can’t wait for tomorrow. Good luck to all the teams competing!