Team 95071X — also known as Saratoga High Extremity — grabbed a highly coveted qualification for the World Championship at the NorCal Signature Event on Feb. 16. The competition was hosted at the India Community Center (ICC) in Milpitas.
Around 100 teams from across the U.S. competed for three World Championship early qualification spots, which guarantee eligibility to the event before attending State Championships. When the last finals match came to an end, senior VEX club president Luke Zhang felt a sense of relief as his team 95071X secured one of the three qualifying spots.
These competitions are all part of the VEX Robotics Competition, where students from all across the world collaborate in small 5-10 person teams and compete in tournaments ranging from local to World-level tournaments. Teams create robots measuring within 18” by 18” by 18,” which can then expand up to 24” horizontally and 36” vertically during match play. This year, teams compete on a field with red and blue rings, being towered over by a 4-foot tall ladder in the center. Each match is composed of four teams separated into the red and blue “alliances,” promoting teamwork and communication.
Field layout for this year’s game, “High Stakes”
Of the seven local competitions they’ve attended, Team 95071X has advanced to the finals in five highly competitive local tournaments and won three of those tournaments.
Team 95071X’s robot being prepared for the first finals match at The Battle of the Bay tournament on Jan. 19
Additionally, the team won the Design Award and Robot Skills Champion twice this year. They reached their highest world standing this season on Feb. 8 — No. 23 out of more than 10,000 teams in the world — in the Skills Challenge. The Skills Challenge is designed to assess a team’s offensive capability, requiring them to score as many points as they can in one minute while alone on a field.
These achievements qualified them for the State Championship early in the season, allowing them significantly more time to prepare for higher-level tournaments. Similarly, Team 95071V — also known as Saratoga High Velocity — won the prestigious Excellence Award early on in the season on Dec. 8, qualifying them for the State Championship as well.
“Receiving a States Qualification earlier allows your team to attend more Worlds-qualifying events,” Zhang said. “Additionally, you can rebuild and modify your design more often, allowing room for further improvement.”
Team 95071X discusses their strategy with their alliance partners, Team 1259A from Irvine.
Impressively, all five of the school’s VEX robotics teams have qualified for the State Championships this season, which will be held on March 8 and 9 at the ICC. Teams 95071R, 95071E and 95071U attained their State Championship qualifications in the last few regional competitions of the year. 95071R qualified by winning the Excellence Award at the Tracy Triangle Regional Event on Feb. 15; 95071E by winning the Design Award at the Saratoga Regional Event on Feb 23; and 95071U was selected to participate in States thanks to their third place skills ranking at regionals.
This year’s game, “High Stakes,” tasks teams with designing robots to score rings on “mobile goals,” which are hexagonally shaped and have a pole where the rings will be stacked on. In addition, two fixed “stakes” are located on the field walls, where robots can also score rings on. There are two “positive” corners where a robot can drop off a goal, and doing so results in the goal being counted for double the points. The other two corners are “negative” corners, and any goal placed inside of it will result in a subtraction of points.
The 15-second period at the start of each match is known as the “autonomous period,” where robots run preprogrammed paths to score. In the last 30 seconds of the match, the positive corners become inaccessible, and robots can elevate themselves on rungs in the middle of the field.
Team 95071R focuses on hardware optimization going into States
According to junior hardware member Lia Go from Team 95071R, after many local tournaments, her team’s robot was slightly warped and bent, affecting the accuracy of their robot programming. In order to make sure their robot is as robust as possible during matches, 95071R has rebuilt most of their robot with new parts, nearly replicating the previous design with only a few optimizations.
“We replaced the robot’s drivetrain that was old and bent, which was causing us issues during matches. In this iteration, we also reinforced the structure so that it is more consistent and durable,” Go said.
While incorporating different bracing techniques on their bot to strengthen it, Team 95071R has also made it a priority to shave weight off their robot to make it faster in action. To cut weight, the team needed to redesign their robot’s structure, sacrificing certain mechanisms to optimize drivetrain speed.
The team is also currently overhauling its robot’s code to improve performance in the autonomous period — 15 seconds at the start of each match where robots complete tasks autonomously through pre-programmed software.
“We have incorporated new control algorithms for movement, which helps us keep the robot’s movement from point to point a lot more consistent,” Go said.
Team 95071V focuses on software consistency to improve gameplay
Team 95071V is prioritizing the software side of their robot going into the State Championship. According to junior Ryan Sun, because their next competition is just around the corner, any major hardware changes might make the robot inconsistent.
“As of now, we are only making slight fixes in hardware, such as repairing a mechanism if it breaks. Any major changes will require tuning and changes to our programming, which we do not have time for,” Sun said.
Team 95071V is focusing on creating more efficient autonomous paths. This year, the alliance that scores higher during the autonomous period in the match receives six bonus points, which is a significant determining factor in the match’s outcome.
“Software-wise, our team is working on redesigning our autonomous paths because a consistent auton is crucial to winning each match. Furthermore, it can also win us awards at the competition, which may help us qualify for Worlds,” Sun said.
The team utilizes a tracking system called odometry, where free-spinning wheels on the robot measure how far it has traveled in a certain direction. However, as each competition field has slight variations due to wear and tear, this system can provide inconsistent readings. To combat this, 95071V tests their autonomous programs on all three of Saratoga’s practice VEX fields to ensure that their programs will be consistent on most fields.
Going into the State Championship, Sun feels confident that their autonomous programs will work consistently and as intended.
“As of now, our [autonomous programs] seem to be pretty consistent regardless of what field we run them on, and I hope that that will help us rank relatively high going into elimination rounds,” Sun said.
Team 95071E makes improvements to robot tracking and hardware
Team 95071E, like Team 95071R, made many hardware changes to their robot to ensure their success at the State Championship. Team 95071E — known as Saratoga High Entropic — has made improvements to their odometry system, scoring mechanisms and intake system.
According to junior Nicole Hao, one of the largest changes to her team’s robot has been the addition of an extra odometry pod on the bottom of the robot. Previously, their robot only used one, meaning that they could only track their robot’s movement in one direction. Now, they are able to accurately determine their robot’s location in two dimensions.
“The new odometry pods will mostly be used to improve our skill runs, which will hopefully qualify us to Worlds,” Hao said. “We hope to achieve a score around 100 or 110, which gives us a good chance to qualify.”
Furthermore, the team has also improved their robot’s wall stake scoring mechanisms by rebuilding its lift system. All of these improvements have allowed Team 95071E to design a consistent robot ready for matches.
Going forward into State Championships, club secretary and Team 95071X driver junior Richard Lee hopes that his team will be able to persevere through any challenges and that other teams in the club will also qualify for the World Championships.
“I hope that our team will be able to perform well in whatever circumstance we find ourselves in and that all of the club’s teams will be prepared and perform as well as possible,” Lee said.
