The Coach’s Journal – No Limits 2004

 A pre-season meeting of the SYRA (Sharon Youth Robotics Association) was held on September 2^nd, primarily to welcome potential new teams and their members to the SYRA.  It was well attended, with a presentation and Q&A session.  Various robots and the new No Limits challenge mat were shown.  We were hopeful that all those who attended would join us in the new FLL season, and most have, increasing the team count in the Association to seven for the 2004 No Limits challenge.

 With the coming of September, our team resumed our regular weekly Sunday PM meetings.  All our meetings are held at our “clubhouse”, the basement room set up with computer equipment, chairs, tables, and even a sectional couch.  We have built a new table using ¾” plywood, and set it up on sawhorses at regulation height for better simulation in practice.  Previously, we had made due with the mat bordered with 2x4s on a Masonite sheet on the floor.

 With the release of the Challenge on September 15^th, our team refocused on designing their response to the mission challenges, as well as working out our previous work on the our proposed Project topic to fit the actual Project challenge.  As usual, our weekly team meetings and SYRA meetings were supplemented with many working sessions as time was available.  Despite balancing schedules already heavy with school work, religious instruction, sports and other activities, the team has tried to dedicate their time to getting the job done.

 To help acclimate new teams to the competition, our team has been helping to mentor the new teams.  We have dedicated a half hour before each meeting to the new teams; for demonstrations, tutorials and questions.  Our coaching tutorial presentation was used to help bring new coaches up to speed. We have worked to keep the flow of information flowing with the SYRA web site (syraweb.home.comcast.net).

 On several weekends, team members have combined trips to the movies with robotic working sessions.  On September 25^th, a delegation from our team visited the Northeastern University Marine labs in Nahant MA to tour and examine the robotic lobster (“RoboLobster”) developed by Dr. Joseph Ayers.

 As our working groups have addressed the missions of the 2004 challenge, they have also been focusing effort on their response to “The Project”.  Our project has focused on addressing the limitations imposed on folks that have to be isolated from contact with the public, or cannot safely travel.  Our “Avatar” project centers around our friend Steven, who has Cystic Fibrosis and needs to stay in the Children’s Hospital in Boston for 2-3 weeks every 4-6 months.  He attends Lasell College in Newton MA, and falls behind in his classes substantially during this periods.  Our team has met with him at Lasell to discuss his situation and various remote access possibilities, which we combined with an outing to a local barbeque restaurant so we could all indulge in some of his favorite food.  We have also visited him at Children’s Hospital, to test the infrastructure and discuss access with their IT staff.  Our results are shared with the IT staff at Lasell College and Children’s Hospital, as well as published on our web site.

 A group from our team, along with some parents, participated in a Cystic Fibrosis run and walk in Pawtucket RI on October 24^th, to raise help raise money for research.

 As our weekly SYRA meetings continued, we participated in simulated competition to tune us up for the regional and state tournaments.  Prior to each tournament, we held elimination competition to decide which teams would represent our organization.

 As our team meeting continued, we supplement extensively with small group work sessions as the team members have time.  Focus shifts from Project to Missions and back, as the perceived progress in one or the other seems lagging. The missions must be brought together in time for the Blackstone regional tournament in Upton on November 20th, where the Project has two extra weeks before the Eastern Massachusetts State tournament in Quincy on December 4th.

On November 16th, our team qualified at the SYRA internal runoff competition to go to the Blackstone regional tournament, along with our long-time partners, the AngelBots.  On the morning of the 20th, the competition for top score in the FIRST LEGO League 2004 No Limits challenge included 6 rounds for each team to achieve their highest score, with the Unlimited team qualified first at 377 (out of a possible 400), and the Angelbots team qualified twelfth.  After a break for lunch, the head-to-head single elimination rounds went well for both teams until, as luck would have it, we faced each other in the seventh round.  After a fiercely contested match, the Unlimited team was fortunate to continue on to face Northborough Team One in the final match.  Victory there left us in first place for the day.

The SER Angelbots team earned the Team Spirit Award for their impressive performance.  The SER Unlimited team earned an award for the Most Impressive Play of the Day and the High Score Award, as well as a trophy for First Place in the tournament.

Mike Norton of Blackstone Valley Regional organized a great competition, run quickly and efficiently (and on time!) with twelve tables, cycling all 48 participating teams through a round every half hour.  Of course, the we remember him and his FRC team with gratitude from the BattleCry@WPI competition last June, where they hosted us and showed us the ropes of designing and competing for the FIRST Robotics Competition.  Head referee Jack Gregory of the SYRA did his usual professional job training and supervising the referee staff.  The staff of volunteers were diligent and effective.

It is unfortunate that there was such a strict ban on camera usage - not even allowing manual focus without flash.  In my experience at tournaments and meetings where cameras were in heavy use, I have never seen an issue with cameras causing RCXs to malfunction.

A fantastic time was had by all members of both teams, and by the looks of things, by everyone else as well.

The two weeks leading up to the Eastern Massachusetts state tournament at North Quincy High School have been busy for the team, finishing up the Project work and displays, and practicing with the mission robot.  The kids have been tireless and enthusiastic throughout the whole process.  The Friday prior we held a marathon practice session, where I picked them up after school and they ran until 8pm - they were ready!

The Saturday (December 4th) of the Quincy tournament started early, with Aamir (Omer's dad) pulling his van up at 7:00am to load up the bulky displays.  A serious accident on I95 delayed us, but we still got to the lot at North Quincy High School before all the parking spots were taken.  We set up on the table next to our partners, the Sharon Eagle Robotic Chimps.  We met a team from Tewksbury, and helped them reload their robot and loaned them a laptop to present on.  After the opening ceremonies, we had 3 good rounds (actually, one so-so and two good rounds, but all fun) that were averaged together to leave us in first for the morning.  Between these runs, we presented to our technical and project judges.

All the while, our games master was running kids through our RoboSumo table, a popular corner in the pit area.  We found that both ourselves and the Robotic Chimps qualified in the top sixteen (#1 and #14), to go on to the pm elimination rounds.   The Chimps made in the second round before elimination, and our team was defeated by North Andover in the final match, falling to their incredible ball machine.

In the award ceremony, the Chimps received the top rookie award, and we received the research innovation award and the robotic performance runner-up award.  Altogether a good performance by Sharon in a hard-fought competition

By this season's rules, our team was not eligible to win at the Central Massachusetts RoboNautica state tournament (we had registered because of the delay in our registration being acknowledged for Quincy).  Instead, we passed our registration to be used by another SYRA team, that had never had the chance to compete in a tournament.  Our team went to the tournament on December 18th, to mentor the two SYRA rookie teams attending - the CoCoColas and the Eaglettes, and to support our partner team, the AngelBots.  We also brought our RoboSumo setup, as requested by teams from the Eastern MA tournament.

The tournament was very well organized, and a great time was had by all.  The SYRA teams attending did very well - each team was awarded a trophy individually, and the 3 teams were awarded the Team Spirit award as a group - a proud accomplishment for them and the SYRA.

After a month's break, our team continued to meet weekly through the winter, to prepare for the Vex Challenge and a late season tournament in mid-March.  We joined with members from our partner team, the AngelBots, for late season competition.  We planned a team outing to the MIT 6.270 final competition on Wednesday the 26th of January, but we were limited to watching the webcast when a major snowstorm closed the MIT campus.

More successful was our field trip to the BAE Granite State FRC regional tournament.  Our team was thrilled to witness the competition, and toured the pits to get a close look at the various robot designs.  Of course, our stop for Italian food on the trip back was also a great success!

Our weekly meetings concentrated on the basics of C coding, presented by Josh's dad.  We have posted most of our notes under the Vex section of our website, and many useful links in the Robovation subsection.

We have expanded our post-season team yet again, to include several members of a team that timed out of FLL, and wasn't able to compete this past season.  It is our intention to help jump-start Vex competition in the SYRA for the Fall 2005 season.  With the coming of March, we have added a second weekly meeting (Tuesday evenings, as well as Sunday evenings), to better prepared for our upcoming late-season FLL tournament, as well as Vex.

We participated in a late season tournament at QCC (Quinsigamond Community College), and enjoyed it immensely!  Scheduled over two days, the Friday night session (unfortunately under-attended) was a great opportunity for the team to share ideas for FLL participation in moderated sessions, and for coaches and mentors to learn and share with each other and FIRST.

At the QCC competition, each team had a classroom as their pit area, and judges came to us for presentations.  Six rounds of competition were followed by Octo, Quarter and Semi-finals on the tables, while Project, Teamwork and Technical judging sessions went on back in the pit areas.  Our team presented in the guise of Press Conferences for their company, Eagle Robotics Labs.  They wore their lab coats and photo name badges, and used press kits with 8x10 copies of the 12x18 photos that David, our "Media Maven", was displaying to the judges.  For the teamwork judges, we displayed our overflowing scrapbooks, illustrating our team activities back to the 2002 season.

Mark Sherman brought his Segway by our area, and allowed the team to try it out during and after the competition.  We certainly appreciate his graciousness in indulging our enthusiasm.  Of course, now owning a Segway has moved to the top of my son's "must have" list.

Insufficient practice, due to our focus on learning C for the Vex competition (yes, we have learned that the software won't be ready), took its toll in our consistency on the field.  Our team did well, but a relatively poor run in the semi-finals dropped us out of contention.  The top-scoring teams, the General Baitfish and Anonobot teams, did a great job!

The Anonobots triumphed in the finals, and the awesome Funky Monkeys took home the Director's Award.  General Baitfish earned the top Research award after an impressive stage presentation.  Our Sharon Eagle Robotics Unlimited team earned the top Technical award, notably on the merits of our "Eagle Overdrive" (Go Straight!).

After the competition, we packed up and trans-shipped our Vex kits to our vehicles, ready to start our new challenge!

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