Twilight Robotic Adventures: Team 2220 Rounds Out the Season with Chrysler Team Spirit Award

It seems there’s a mysterious force—call it the ghost in the machine, if you will—governing the behaviors of the robots at FIRST Robotic Competitions. Sooner or later, they have a seizure, spin out of control, go backward, or do something their creators haven’t anticipated.

In early April, during the North Star Regional competition, Team 2220, nicknamed Blue Twilight, discovered that. Ed Anderson, the team’s CAD mentor, reported: “When we opened the crate at the North Star regional, our robot had inexplicably developed a few problems. The elastic band that powered the kicker snapped, and when we put a replacement on, it provided too much tension, which made it difficult for the pneumatic piston to push the kicker all the way into the catch.  Also, the lifter was jammed or something, and it wasn’t working for us.”

These defects essentially deprived the team of its scoring mechanisms, giving them good reasons to be anxious on the eve of the tournament. Furthermore, they also found out the robot’s responses weren’t fully synchronized with the controls. So the team worked on the robot until the pits closed, then returned the next day to face its opponents in the qualifying rounds. To their surprise and relief, their machine TeckBot performed quite well.

“We were able to kick the soccer balls over the barriers, we were able to move about the field at will, and we consistently scored the two-point bonus for climbing the tower at the end of the match,” noted Ed. “Our position in the standings rose and fell throughout the day and a half of qualifying rounds, and in the end, we placed eighth out of a field of around 60 robots.”

In the second set of the qualifying matches, Ed remembered a proud moment when the robot “slowly moved forward, kicked the ball, and sent it over the barrier,  over [its] teammate robot, and into the goal!  It moved forward again, kicked the second ball, and sent it sailing into the goal as well.” To sum it up, the mach “ended with another successful lift from Team 2220 to end in a decisive 7-2 win.”

In the subsequent third and fourth matches, which Ed described as “a heart breaker” and “a nail biter” respectively, mechanical problems created a few tense moments.“We had a little trouble crossing the barrier, and when we finally put enough momentum into the effort, the motion of the robot over the bump jarred our lifter hook loose from the end of the telescope ... When TeckBot tried to lift however, the telescope only extended about halfway,  then stopped. Apparently the mechanism hadn’t been properly reset following the previous use,” recalled Ed.

Nevertheless, the final score—Blue Alliance 4 (Team 2220’s side) versus Red Alliance 2—brought the team into the semi-final round. “Unfortunately, we got pasted,” Ed recounted. “We lost in two straight matches.”

However, Blue Twilight scooped up Chrysler Team Spirit, which celebrates extraordinary enthusiasm and spirit through an exceptional partnership and teamwork.

I came in contact with Team 2220 through an introduction provided by PTC, makers of Pro/ENGINEER software and a regular supporter of FIRST competitions. Because the team was gracious enough to let me follow them, I was privy to their progress, from their creative fund-raising campaigns (involving hot dog stands and grocery bagging on the weekend) to CAD modeling sessions to their first encounter with 3D printing (courtesy of Solido).

To trace the history of Team 2220, read the following blog posts:

• Introducing Blue Twilight: Team 2220
• Twilight Robotic Adventures: Kick Off!
• Twilight Robotic Adventures: Grab, Toss, and Dangle

For more, see the slide show below featuring memorable moments from Team 2220’s history:

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