Systemetric Team Overview

8/7/2019 Systemetric Team Overview

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Team OverviewSchool Year 2010-2011


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Overview

Systemetric is a robotics team comprised of students at Hills Road SixthForm College, Cambridge UK

The teams name comes from the metric system of measurement andsystem. The name was chosen as reference to the United States

continued use of the imperial system of measurement, where the UK haschanged to the metric system

The team has become iconic for wearing British Union Flag waistcoatsand bowler hats at the New York City Regional, accompanied by the teamslogan Dont Walk, Do the Robot


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Hills Road Sixth Form College

The college is a sixth formcentre, which means itexclusively has students intheir last two years of formaleducation before University

All of the students at thecollege are studying foracademic A Level courses, thecollege does not run anyvocational courses

The college is one of theforemost academic collegesin the state sector, regularlycoming at the top of thenational League Tables ofstudent performance


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Hills Road Sixth Form College

There is a very strong reputation forachievement and academic strength with largenumbers of students going to top Universities

within the country The students in the robotics team are mostly

studying scientific or technical subjects:mathematics, physics, electronics and

computing Students from the robotics team usually go on

to scientific, mathematical or engineeringdegrees


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Funding

We are entirely self-funded and rely on the

generosity of parents, donations, fundraising

and most importantly, sponsorship This enables us to undertake the building and

operation of a robot in the New York City

Regional of the FIRST Robotics Competition


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Current Sponsors

We would like to thank our current sponsors

for their support


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The Competition

The team was formed in December 2001

It began when an American student, Ankur

Mehkta, on exchange to Cambridge Universityfrom MIT was looking for a group of students tocontinue his involvement in FIRST

A group of about 12 students leapt at the chanceto try their hand at robotics, and the team wasborn, becoming the first from the UK to enter

We recruited two engineering mentors, parentsof some of the initial team members, andconstructed our first robot Spork


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The Competition

Our first visit to New York was asuccess, and filled with enthusiasmwe have continued to the present,

now in our 10th year of competition

This year the team is made up of 34students from both years, with justunder a third in the Upper Sixth,

either newly joined or veteransfrom the previous year, while all thelower sixth are new to thecompetition


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FIRST

FIRST is a not-for-profitorganization which encouragesyoung people to discover and

develop a passion for science,engineering and technology

Founded in 1989 by inventor DeanKamen, the 2009-2010 FIRST

season attracted over 212,000students, 57,000 mentors andcoaches, and over 33,000 othervolunteers


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FIRST

The FIRST Robotics Competitionstages short games played byautonomous and remote-controlled

robots The robots are designed and built in 6

weeks, from of a common set of parts,by students and a handful ofprofessional engineer mentors

The robots are built under strict rules,limited resources and time limits

It's as close to "real world" engineeringthat a student can get.


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FIRST

The competition is played out througha series of Regional competitionsthroughout the US

We regularly compete in the New YorkCity Regional, which is now one of thebiggest, last year having 63 teamsattending

The arena measures 54ft by 27ft (18m

x 9m) with a variety of targets andgoals, which changes year-on-year

This is a challenge, one which willstretch the students abilities, but willprepare them for their futures!


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NYC Regional Background

The competition takes placeover a period of 3 days

Day 1: Spent on practicerounds, played in a liveenvironment but not scoring.This allows teams to resolveissues prior to thecompetition

Day 2: A seeding day whererobots compete with otherrandom robots

Day 3: Seeding continues,then the top 8 seeded teamspick alliances to compete inthe final rounds of thecompetition


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NYC Regional Background

The purpose of thecompetition is toencourage the up-and-

coming engineers andtechnicians of the future,to set problems and tobuild team allegiances inpreparation for their

careers in industry

These are not toy robots,

but devices built to achievechallenging targets


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Achievements

2002

FRC New York City Regional SportsmanshipAward

FRC New York City Regional Semi-Finalists

2003

FRC New York City Regional Xerox CreativityAward

FRC New York City Regional 3rd place

2004

FRC New York City Regional Winners

2005

FRC New York City Regional Imagery Award

FRC New York City Regional Quarter-Finalists

2006

FRC New York City Regional Finalists

2007

FRC New York City Regional Semi-Finalists

2008

FRC New York City Regional Quarter-Finalists

2009

FRC New York City Regional 29th out of 66

2010 FRC New York City Regional 47th out of 63

mbed Robot Racing Cambridge 1st place

mbed Robot Racing Global 2nd place


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Our RobotsAs built for each years competition games


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2002: Spork

Named Spork for no particular reason

Cobbled together from what scraps ofAluminium, Perspex and Plywood wecould find and scrounge from local

metal suppliers scrap bins Using two wheel drive and a

pneumatic grabber it proved itself tobe a reliable, nimble and effectivemachine

The object of the game was to collectfootballs from the field and placethem in a vertical cage, known as thegoal

The goals were mobile and the scorefor a team was increased if a goal wasmoved to an end zone


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2003: Stealth Hedgehog

The second year of competition saw the robotbeginning to show some hallmarks of the Systemetricapproach

The frame was built from welded steel tubing and

employed a mix of both pneumatic and electricalcontrols

The robot won the Xerox Creativity Award for ourinnovative mechanism for stacking the target crates

This competition involved pushing crates into the teamscoring zone and trying to make stacks

The scoring was to take the number of crates in thezone and multiply by the highest stack

To complicate things further, the middle of the floorwas elevated, and approached by ramps from eachside.


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2004: The Rt.Hon. Charles Erasmus

Worthington-Smythe III Esq. OBE

The competition was very elaborate, includingramps and steps for the robots to try and climb,with bonus points scored at the end of thecompetition by robots hoisting themselves off thefloor on a metal bar which ran across the width ofthe field in the middle of the sides 10 inches off theground. There was also big and small balls togather and hurl into target goals

Unfortunately the team had neglectedfundamental rules regarding the robots weight,and shipped it overweight

This meant in New York the robot had to undergosome radical surgery

The robot had been very ambitious and tried to domost the objectives, but the weight limit meant alot of the functionality had to be removed


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2005: Eric

The forth year saw the first ofthe high lifting robots, Eric

Used a four-bar mechanism toreach the highest part of thetetra challenges

The design had learnt thelesson of previous years andwas well within the weight andsize limits imposed

Once again, the team wassuccessful and ended up seeded11th, which was enough to seethe team selected for the knockout rounds where they reachedthe quater-finals


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2006: Conicio

The aim of the game was to collect balls(about football sized) from the field andget them into goals at the enemys endzone

Combined the ability to pick up balls fromthe floor and to either shoot them at a highgoal, or roll them into either of the two lowgoals

This ability to select the target by the robotfrom a variety of options led to a verysuccessful competition

The robot reached the 7th seeded place

After some internal selection amongst theseeded team we were eventually the 5th

seeded alliance when partners were picked

After a series of tough competition, therobot was eventually beaten in the final


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2007: Mothzilla

The design returned to four-bar linkagefor the lifting arm which was once againsuccessful

An upper sixth student was able tosuccessfully program the vision system tooperate in autonomous mode (thought itwas defeated by lighting conditions atthe regional)

The light seeking nature of our robot andthe jaw like operation of the grabber onthe end of the arm led to it being dubbedMothzilla

Although we did not seed particularlyhighly, we were selected by the 2nd

seeded alliance and were able to fightbravely through to the semi-finals

We used a worm gear to lift the arm,which proved very successful


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2008:Hugzilla

This robot saw a third lifting arm design, and a thirddifferent lifting mechanism

A pneumatic system was adopted, a sensible choicesince there were only two heights the robot neededto reach

With its huge grabbing arms needed to grasp theenormous 40 ball, which was the main playing pieceof the game, it became known as Hugzilla, settingthe trend for the naming of all our arm robots

The competition saw the arena turned into a racetrack, with an oval path all the robots had to followin a clockwise direction

Across the centre of the loop was a gantry, balancedupon which were four enormous 40 diameter balls

Robots scored bonuses if they could carry or pushone of the balls around with them

Hugzilla was picked by one of the top teams and sowe entered the knock out rounds


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2009:Nessie

2009 saw the return of picking upballs and delivering them to goals,although things were made trickyby robots towing a goal basketbehind them

The entire playing area was coveredin a low friction surface and therobots had to use specified lowfriction wheels, which lead to agame which was slightly more downto random chance

The team was unlucky in some ofthe matches so ended up unseededand, for the first time, the team wasnot picked for a final alliance,although the team was actuallyranked 29th out of the 64 teams atNew York


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2010: Colosson

Designed to kick footballs into goals onboth ends of the arena

It used a 3 wheel drive system withdeployable casters for quick and easyturning. The robot was capable of goingover ramps on the arena, and was alsosmall enough to pass through tunnels inthe ramps. It was also capable of blockingother teams robots from scoring

Unfortunately technical issues during someof the matches played by the robotseverely hindered our competition ranks.During one match power issues with therobot's radio meant the robot was unableto communicate with the control systemand therefore it had to sit out the match.During another match software issuesmeant that the robot did not respond tocommands as intended


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Summary

As you can imagine, this exciting projectmotivates the students on many levels. It is

an example of real-world problems and theoften short timescales imposed on industryto react to demands

The only assistance the students receive from

their elders is advice and mentoring, no otherassistance is given and the robot is a directresult of their endeavours


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Summary

A total of15,000 needs to be raised and thestudents spare time is spent fundraising,through various activities such as allowingpeople to try driving and operating one of therobots

We hope that you might be in a position to assist

the students in entering the competition. Mostdirect costs, such as air travel and hotels, aremet by the students and parents but, overall, therobot build will need funding


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Summary

As you can see from the earlier pictures, there aremany panels on the robots and we would be morethan happy to display the logo or any other detail

from a sponsor on them Events are broadcast via the internet, and NasaTV

has carried events in the past

The students would be pleased to demonstrate one ofthe robots to anyone interested in assisting them increating robots for future competitions

You would be, of course, more than welcome toattend and see the huge enthusiasm that thiscompetition creates for the future Leaders of Industry


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ContactDetails

If you are in a position to help, please contactour team supervisor at:

David MasseyHills Road Sixth Form CollegeHills RoadCambridge

CB2 8PE E-mail: [email protected]

We look forward to hearing from you soon!

Systemetric Team Overview

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