“People have found very innovative ways to get around problems, such as being run over,” said BHS freshman, Ansh Panjala, about the issues of creating resilient robots for competition. He had designed a remote controlled bunny from an RC car for the BunnyBots competition.
BunnyBots is an annual offseason FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) event hosted by Catlin Gabel’s team 1540, The Flaming Chickens, taking place in mid-December. This year’s competition, entitled Rabbit Roundup, had two main ways to score points. First, robots could collect large wiffle balls and throw them at robots on the other team, gaining points for each hit to a bucket attached to the top of the robot. If a robot was hit three times, it would be disabled for five seconds. The second main way to score was to retrieve bunnies from the middle of the field and take them to your alliance’s home zone. The bunnies could be stuffed animals or robots; the decision was up to the teams to make based on their own and their alliance’s strategy. Because of this, some teams, including Beavertronics, built remote-controlled bunny robots in addition to their main robot to score points more effectively.
FRC events during the build season, which starts in January, are more formal than BunnyBots, which instead “provides a way for new FRC teams and new members to gain vital skills before the build season,” according to BunnyBots host team 1540’s website. This year, Beavertronics’ team has many freshmen and people new to FRC, so BunnyBots provided valuable experience for the season.
Beavertronics participated in two matches at BunnyBots. During the first match, the robot was emergency stopped. Meanwhile, the bunny robot showed promise, continuing to drive even after being run over three times in a row. Between the first and second match, both the robot and bunny robot were repaired. During the second match, Beavertronics’ robot completed its hybrid routine during the first fifteen seconds of the match, in which the robots can only operate based on code or other non-powered means. The robot made it through the rest of the match, even with a piece falling off part way through and dragging around for the remainder of the match. Beavertronics’ alliance won that match with 58 points.
Even though Beavertronics did not make it to the playoffs at BunnyBots this year, the new team members were able to gain valuable knowledge of how competitions operate, ahead of the FRC build season. New members of the team are looking forward to it. “I like the competitive environment,” stated sophomore Matt Hooper. “But it’s not angry, it’s really supportive.”
