March 8th: FRC 2024 Crescendo, San Francisco Regional (Day 1)

Today was alright, but hopeful. I also ran the entire day with two hours of sleep 👍

As a reminder, today was just practice matches.

In the morning we finished fixing the final issues with the robot and did any last minute fabrication that we needed to do. Then, we packed up everything we needed for the regional into the vans, including Joana's Dad's truck. The robot went onto the freeway at 60MPH, the fastest it will ever experience : - )

On the way there, our mentor Ms. Flo helped me think about my Dean's List interview on tomorrow.

Anyways, when we arrived we unloaded everything into the pits and got to work on working on the robot. I got started with configuring our radio for competition with another programming member. Then, while the engineering squad worked on the robot, the other folks on the drive team and I went to the driver's meeting, where we got to see the field.

I originally thought that the field was a lot larger and taller, perhaps around the size of the 2022 FRC game Rapid React. However, it's not actually that big, which made me more confident. It was also the first time I got to see a 2024 field in person! In fact, it's the first time the entire team had ever seen any 2024 field game elements!

Honestly after that I don't remember much. The engineering team was working on the finishing touches for the robot, and after that, the electrical team had to wire up the robot. After all of that, we had to pass inspection.

During this time I worked with the other programming member on the advanced vision processing. At first we had some issues but we should be clear to test.

When we were finally inspected, we had some issues with our bumpers, our wiring, and our frame perimeter.

Upon our second inspection the only problem was with the bumpers, after we had addressed all of the other issues.

Finally, on our third inspection, we passed it! Yippee! 

As it turns out, I'm the first interviewee for the Dean's List award tomorrow. I'm a bit anxious, but I know to be myself.

After that we brought our robot to the practice field. At first the robot was unable to pick up from the ground and we needed to push the note in. However, we were able to score into the speaker with no problem. I can't say the same for the amp though, but we never intended for the amp to work. So, we tried to fix the problem with our ground intake.

First we used some gaffer's tape to increase the radius of the rollers, but then we lost grip. After some time with testing and thinking, we tried intaking from the ground again on a different area of the practice field and we were able to pick up notes. The other carpet we were on must've been shaved off a little or worse quality. 

While we were practicing we had some issues with our battery. It looks like we'll only be able our new batteries, to which we only have 2 of. We also got some practice with intaking and shooting game pieces.

After that we were kicked out from the pits and went home!

Thanks for reading,
Issac