Wild Ride at FiT San Antonio District Event
Hopes were high going into this past weekend but reality easily exceeded expectations. FRC 1477 Texas Torque went undefeated over the two days of competition, finishing with a record of Continue Reading →
2018 South Florida Regional
This past weekend, the students, and mentors of Texas Torque traveled to West Palm Beach, Florida, to compete for our week 5 competition, South Florida Regional. Texas Torque competed in 10 hard fought qualification matches, which resulted us in the rank 34 position. By gracious decisions of the alliance captain 1251, Tech-Tiger Robotics, and their first pick 1902, Exploding Bacon, we were able to join their alliance to compete as the 7th seed alliance.
After 3 hard fought quarter-final matches, we were able to advance to semi finals, where we have been knocked off by the 6th seed alliance, team 1744, 2383, and 3164. Although some issues came along, the drive team did the best they could do to win the match. Congratulations on regional finalists to the 6th seed alliance, and the 1st seed alliance, 179, 180, and 1369 for their regional win.
Good news for the team came along during the awards ceremony, when Texas Torque was selected as the Chairman’s Award winner! This is our 4th Chairman’s Award in five years, which continues the three-year streak of winning Chairman’s Award. You can watch our 2018 Chairman’s Video here.
In two weeks, Texas Torque will be competing in the 2018 Houston FIRST Championship. As we prepare for the event, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or The Blue Alliance for updates on our progress.
2018 Lone Star Central Regional
This past weekend, the students, mentors, and parents of Texas Torque gathered at the Strake Jesuit school in downtown Houston for the 2018 Lone Star Central Regional. Armageddon, our 2018 robot, performed consistently well in qualification matches and earned us a spot as captains of the first-seed alliance. We teamed up with team 4587 Jersey Voltage, the second seed, and team 6377 the Howdy Bots.
Throughout elimination matches, we performed well, demonstrating coordinated autonomous modes and skilled cooperation. With the help of our alliance partners, we emerged undefeated and with the regional win. This is the second year in a row our team has won the Lone Star Central Regional, and we couldn’t have done it without our supportive mentors and parents!
During the awards ceremony, we made quite a few trips down to the field to collect our awards: on top of being Regional Winners, our team won the Safety Award, as well as Engineering Inspiration for our outreach efforts. We were also thrilled when Jackson Schilling, our Mechanical Lead and Sponsorship Liaison, won Dean’s List! He is our team’s FIRST Dean’s List Finalist, and we are so proud of everything he has done for the team.
Texas Torque would like to thank our amazing alliance partners 4587 Jersey Voltage and 6377 Howdy Bots for a great run in the Lone Star Central Regional. We’d also like to congratulate the finalist alliance, including team 5417 Eagle Robotics, the Regional Chairman’s Winners.
Our team will be competing in the South Florida Regional next week! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or The Blue Alliance for updates on our progress.
2018 Dallas Regional
From March 1st to 4th, Texas Torque traveled to Dallas to compete at the annual Dallas Regional. After a long bus ride from our home in The Woodlands, the team rested up to prepare for practice day on Friday. We also made final changes to the robot and practiced before the competition, which took place on Saturday and Sunday.
With our robot’s autonomous mode working smoothly as programmed, we were able to place a cube on the scale for our alliance, creating a early boost in score. Some issues with the arm came along during the regional, but we were able to fix them after each match. Though we played some hard matches, we were able to quickly cycle cubes to the exchange station and deliver nine cubes in under a minute. This rapid exchange made us one of the most efficient cycling robots at the event.
We were then invited to join team 5889 on the seventh-seeded alliance, after which we selected team 6655 to complete our alliance. The quarterfinal matches were against one of the top contenders, and the results were hard fought lost on both matches to knock us out.
Texas Torque won the Entrepreneurship Award. We congratulate team 148 and their partners teams 118 and 2789 for winning the regional! We’d also like to commend team 1296 on their Regional Chairman’s Award win.
Build Season Week 6 and 7 Update
After much anticipation, all sheet metal and powder coated parts arrived courtesy of NEMA Enclosures just in time to begin a hustle towards completion. Testing on the telescoping arm offered a final solution to loss of tension, ultimately leading into the assembly of the final version. Using Bravo, we tested the arm for not only placing cubes but also climbing.
Assembly by assembly Armageddon, our name for the 2018 season’s robot, began to become a reality. Intakes were made but to our disappointment we faced issues intaking cubes in our first beta tests. Soon after realizing the source of conflict, intake started to work smoothly. Armageddon is complete after long work hours, and we continued to work on programming autonomous modes for the switch and scale.
As we prepare for our first regional, Dallas Regional, we continued to create more spare parts in order to prepare for any breaks or replacements that will be made throughout the regional.
We cannot thank our sponsors, parents, and mentors enough for not only their unconditional support but also for the experience which they have gifted to us.
Thank you for keeping up with us on our 6 week journey, and see you at Dallas Regional, Lone Star Central, and South Florida Regional!
Build Season Week 5 Update
After CAD being finalized last week, the sheet metal for charlie came in. All members of Texas Torque are hard at work in order to get the robot ready for more drive practice.
The metals that were received have been powder coated for use on the competition robot. Also, all the parts that can be made in-house is nearly completed.
Texas Torque also came up with an operator panel design for the season, with each button assigned to each task.
Chairman’s Team finished and submitted majority of the essays, and have only few more to go until their deadline.
Stay tuned for additional weekly updates!
Build Season Week 4 Update
All prototypes are finalized, along with all designs. The final CAD is likely to be completed this week.
Our bravo robot is near completion, and is going to be completed on the first day of week 5. Parts for charlie has been sent to our sponsor for powder coating, and is coming in by the end of the week.
The driver got more practice with driving, and autonomous programming has been done.
Stay tuned for additional weekly updates!