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This Year’s Competition
This year’s theme, Starstruck, is played on
a 12ft by 12ft field, and the objective of the
game is to get stars and cubes as scoring
objects on the other side of a fence placed
in the center of the field. Each side of the
field is separated into halves; the side
closest to the fence is the Near Zone, and
the farthest is the Far Zone. Stars are
worth 1 point in the near zone, and cubes
are worth 2 in the near zone. Their values,
in points, are doubled if they reach the far
zone. Teams have a total of 1 minute and
45 seconds to get as many scoring objects
on the other side as possible, preceded by
15 seconds of autonomous robot work, in
which the robot moves on its own based
off of user-typed code. You compete in a
match with another team on your alliance,
and play against two teams that compose
the other, opposing alliance.
Robert Jones Ortiz, Jacob Sallenbach, Ethan
Phan, and Jackson Vasquez (Left to right)
working on their robot.
What We’re Doing
Our school has two robots. Their license,
or code numbers, are “8490” and
“8490B.” We go to the competion, losing
our Saturdays, to compete against, and
alongside, different varieties of middle
schools. We currently have a robot with
a rake, and (as you can see in the
picture) a scissor-lift robot that has a
rake/claw on it.
This year’s competition
field at Ranchero
Middle School, set up
with stars and cubes at
their designated
15
locations.