It’s been a busy few weeks for Trial and Error Robotics. A little over a week ago, the team and several other robotics teams attended the Powerplay Kickoff event for the 2023-24 First Tech Challenge season. Kickoff was held at Hartfield Academy in Flowood again this year. At the event, team members could learn and grow their skills by attending breakout sessions led by a select few FTC coaches and mentors. Our very own coach, Mr. Cody, taught the popular CAD class alongside other coaches, teaching sessions on judging, scouting, 3-D printing, drive trains, and how to make team videos.

The main event everyone looks forward to is the big game reveal. (Click Here for the link to the YouTube Video) All the teams were excited to see the new FTC challenge for this year. The reveal did not disappoint. This year’s challenge included hexagonal pixels that the robots will have to place on different points on the field, and the robot will then have to launch a drone over the field walls and onto the landing zone. The last component is hanging. The robot can also suspend from the game element in the center of the field for extra points. Our team was excited and a bit nervous, but this will be a fun challenge to overcome.

This last week, we discussed our priorities and goals for the next few weeks. At our latest team meeting, we discussed what kind of drive train we need for the challenge and the type of grabber or mechanism we want to use to place the pixels. The rest of the team worked on some ideas for launching the drone. This week the coaches and volunteers have been working hard on cleaning up a new build room for the team. Soon, the team will have our new field set up, and we are excited to get working.