Los Alamos Middle School Hawks robotics team members are, back row from left: Keven Zou, Ferenbaugh, and Thomas West. Front row: Alexander Justus, Felicity Trujillo, and Brandon Keller with their 1st place trophy. Photo by Sonja Salzman
Los Alamos Hawks Team 7813’s Keven Zou (lift controller), Felicity Trujillo (driver) and Brandon Keller (coach) in front with Thomas West (back-up human player for this match) behind on the far right working together to maneuver their robot to place a red ‘sample’ in the top basket during a seeding match with alliance partner Hack City (Team 21797) in purple. Photo by Bradle of Bradly Cooke
BY ANNE COOKE
The Los Alamos Alpha Hawks won the first competition of New Mexico region’s FIRST Robotics Challenge (FTC) that was held in Alamogordo, NM at the Alamogordo High School on Saturday, December 7. Nine teams from New Mexico competed in this scrimmage. This year’s FTC challenge “Into the Deep” requires teams to design, build, and program their robots to compete in an alliance format against other teams.
Teams, including coaches, mentors and volunteers, develop strategy and build robots based on sound engineering principles with starting dimensions of 18 inches cubed, but can expand to nearly 5 feet in height. The Los Alamos Middle School students of Team 7813 Alpha Hawks fielded their robot and won 4 of 5 matches to be seeded second of the competing teams, while Enigma (Team 16265, Albuquerque) took the top seed by winning all 5 of their matches.
The two leading teams were then given the opportunity to select an alliance partner from the remaining teams. Enigma graciously invited the Hawks to join their alliance, but the Hawks wanted a chance to compete as an alliance captain, and so they declined the invitation. Enigma invited Hack City (Team 21797, Albuquerque), the third seeded team to be their alliance partner, while the Hawks invited the fourth seeded team, Gear Masters (Team 10348, Albuquerque), to be their alliance partner.
The game this year, “Into the Deep”, challenges teams to design a robot that can deliver a “sample” to either a 24 or 48-inch-tall basket or pick up and take a “sample” to a human player, who places a hook on the sample for the robot to pick up and hang from an alliance-specific rod one of two different heights. Points can also be earned by pushing a ‘sample’ into a corner or by having the robot hang itself from a bar. Each match begins with 30 seconds of autonomous robot operation leading into 2 minutes of driver-controlled operation. Alliance drivers cooperate to maximize their own robot’s capabilities and help each other overcom their weaknesses.
Three finalist matches were played to determine the overall winning alliance. Enigma and Hack City won the first match 116 to 94 points. The second match went to the Hawks and Gear Masters (101 to 39 points) as a dropped ‘sample’ unluckily landed inside the mechanism of Enigma’s robot, requiring them to stop play for the remainder of that match. Meanwhile the Hawks and Gear Masters changed strategy to jointly place more “samples” into the baskets,
they could do faster than hanging the “samples” on bars.
The last sudden death match saw the Hawks and Gear Masters earning 102 to 74 points to win the first FTC competition of the season. The Hawks took home the 3D-printed trophy as the captain of the winning alliance.
The Hawks will compete in the next scrimmage in Albuquerque at La Academia De Esperanza Charter School on Jan. 18, 2025, and they will work to improve their robot for the next competition.
To find out more about FTC Robotics and this year’s game, check out the following link: https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/ftc/game-and-season