TUSD Robotics
2018-2019 Season: Issue 1
Beckman HS Hosts First Official Tournament
Getting Teams Ready for the Next Match at the Queuing Table
Referees Making it Look Easy
Volunteers Taking a Break
Learning Tournament Manager Software From IT
Mr. Sit and Judges Prepare to Hand Out Awards
Audience Watching Final Matches
All three Foothill Knight Time Bot Teams made it to the semi-finals with Teams A and B squaring off in the last final match. Team A took home the tournament champion trophy and the first TUSD Robotics ticket to the CA State Championships. Way to go Foothill Robotics!
Transition to VEX V5
Unfortunately, VEX underestimated their ability to produce enough equipment to supply all of their orders. Due to the fact that TUSD Robotics has 36 secondary teams, it looks like it might take the rest of this season to receive everything we purchased. VEX is so short on V5 motors, they are only sending 4 motors per V5 bundle until they have fulfilled every trade-in order. This makes it even more difficult to transition since a V5 robot needs a minimum of 8 motors to compete.
Currently, there are 4 V5 bundles that are headed to TUSD of the 36 we ordered. It will take 2 V5 bundles in order to build a robot due to the motor shortage. As of now, the plan will be to provide each program who would like to transition this year with 2 bundles as they come in, beginning with the high school programs. Some schools will wait until next year to begin transitioning since it takes such a long time to build a robot.
At this time, it is important that all teams design and build robots using legacy equipment. Do not plan on transitioning to V5 this year at all. For the robotics programs who would like to begin troubleshooting and experimenting with V5, I will let the coaches decide which students or teams would be best suited for this job. However, the plan is that the robots we compete with during the qualification season will be legacy robots. It is most likely that V5 equipment will be used to build new robots for the teams who qualify for the CA State Championships.
We have one more challenge with V5 and that is we will need to learn a new coding language and platform. The chosen platform for TUSD Robotics will be the VEX Coding Studio. Students are free to choose a different coding platform, but the resources provided to help with this transition will all be for VEX Coding Studio.
To learn more about V5 and begin researching V5 coding, please use the resources below:
Vex Coding Studio Downloads for V5
Webinar Series from Carnegie Mello: Transitioning from Robot C to VEX Coding Studio
Meet Flex!
Here is a link to the directions for building the Flex Robot.