2015 Competition

On Thursday, March 19, we arrived at VCU's Siegel Center to take advantage of a full work day. We had a complete drive train, but we ran into problems with our gearboxes that required disassembly. The manipulator team was working to attach the lift mechanism to our base. The programming team had to rearrange the electronics multiple times to fit with the design. As usual, it was twelve hours of intense work in preparation for the games.

On Friday, March 20, we continued working on the robot, but we struggled to find a way to attach the lift mechanism. Team 4481, The Rembrandts offered one of their spare lift devices; we initially hoped to finish our own device, but for the sake of time, we gratefully accepted the donation. (As a fall project, we plan on assembling our original design). The Rembrandts helped us to assemble the rest of our bot in working condition. We passed inspection and were able to play Recycle Rush. The team cheered as we scored our first points by stacking totes on the scoring platform.

On Saturday, March 21, we got to work troubleshooting any problems with our bot. We relaxed for the opening ceremonies and played through our last few matches. We even contributed to the highest scoring match in all of the qualifying rounds! After our 10 matches, we finished in 26th place, which is incredible since our bot was not complete coming into the competition.

Team 3361 had a great time at the 2015 competition, but we could not have done it without our sponsors and all of the teams that helped us at the 2015 game. Special thanks to Stijn Spanjaard, Marco Goud, and the rest of Team 4481 and Craig Conkling of Team 122, The Nasa Knights.