iRaiders of Melrose MA (2713)

Strategy drives iRaiders robot team to a best ever 3rd place seed at BattleCry at WPI

The Melrose High School iRaiders robot team battled two a third place seed at this weekends BattleCry at WPI, with their best finish in the four years of the program. The team then piloted their way into the semi finals with the driving team of Andy Griscom, Duncan McLeod, Ethan Calamari, and Joe Valente. BattleCry@WPI (http://www.wpi.edu/news/Events/BattleCry/challengers.html) is one of the New England regions most difficult competitions fielding 48  teams from all New England states and New York. A vast majority of the teams have had programs in place for 10 years. The iRaiders was one of the youngest teams to make it into the semi finals.

The season started in January with game strategy driven by senior captain Cam Peterson, "in past years we created robots that were too complicated, which meant we couldn't always accomplish our goals. This year we decided to build a simple robot and perfect what it could do." This strategy paid off as the robot was able to score successfully in all three segments of the competition.  This year's competition was three on three basketball. The students developed and discussed several options including a shooting, and a slam-dunk style robot. "In the end the team picked a very simple, reliable and effective slam-dunk mechanism", noted Betsy Giovanardi, one of the mechanical engineering mentors for the team.

And effective it was. The robot was able to drive up and drop two balls in, gaining a foundation score of 10 points in autonomous mode, the first phase of the competition. In this phase the robot must act completely on it's own with no inputs from the drivers team. These foundational points were, in many cases, the extra points needed for the  iRaiders to a win.

After scoring points during the middle phase of the match the team concluded the final phase driving up onto a robot scale bridge/teeter-toter and put it into balance. Balancing a single robot required driving finesse and coordination within the driving team. Freshman Duncan McLeod was key to this exercise by controlling a pusher that was able to push the bridge down to allow the robot to climb on board.  As the driver, Freshman Andy Griscom not only succeeded in driving the iRaiders robot onto the teeter-toter, but was also able to work with other teams to actually balance two robots at the same time on the same teeter-toter scoring twice the number of points. (see attached images). "Through each round Andy kept on getting better and better", noted newly elected co-capitain Andrew Claxton.

Vex team competes in the World Championship (after winning Excellence Award at New England Regionals)

The middle school robotics team 2713A qualified for the world championship by winning the highest award at the QCC (Quinsigamond Community College in Worchester, MA) New England regionals on March 3rd. The Excellence Award recognizes the team that "excels in many areas and is a shining example of dedication, devotion, hard work and teamwork." The iRaiders also were a finalist and barely lost out in a series of nail biting tiebreakers in the finals.

 

 

Chloe Melville (left) and Meghan Cincotta (right)
at QCC New England Regionals with Excellence Award

 

Chloe Melville and Meghan Cincotta competed in the Vex World Championships in Anaheim, CA during spring break on April 19th throught the 21st. They were accompanied by two mentors: John Wright and Mike Festa and their families. Representing the iRaiders Team 2713A, they had qualified by winning the overall Excellence Award (the highest award) at the New England Regionals on March 3rd. In Anaheim they competed in a field of 153 teams from all over the world including China, New Zealand, Mexico, Bahrain and Singapore. They faced tough competition and had several matches decided by a single point winning 2 and losing 8. The team had a great time and are already planning their design and strategy for next year's game: Sack Attack. They found time after the competition to go to Disneyland and see the California shore.

 

iRaiders go 3-0 on Saturday, 6-4 overall at Boston Regionals

The IRaiders performed to their potential be going 3 for 3 on Saturday the second day of competition.   The robot performed well scoring in all aspects of the competition which included autonomous,  teleoperated, and the final balance skill.

Pictured below the iRaiders score with two balls to gain bonus points in the first seconds of automonous mode. In this mode the robot is completely controlling it's own operation with no driving inputs from students.

 

More videos from the competition can be found at http://www.youtube.com/user/MelroseFirstRobotics?ob=0. There is also a photo album on this blog with images from the competition.

Overall the team finished in 29th place going 6-4-0 for the two day competition.

iRaiders makes it to quarterfinals in 2012 VEX State Championship

                 

Saturday, January 7^th, the Melrose Middle School VEX team competed in the 2012 VEX State Championship in Worcester, MA.  As one of more than 60 teams from across New England competing for top robot, the iRaiders team was proud to make it to the finals.

 

The team competed in a number of qualifying rounds, demonstrating their skills using both autonomous mode and operator-controlled actions. They did encounter some challenges in early rounds, including a battle scar to the robot’s plexiglass cover. However, the team worked diligently after every round to make improvements that would put them ahead.  Their efforts were rewarded with the team placing 8^th in the quarterfinals – a huge success for iRaiders! 

See the iRaiders robot in action! 

 

Melrose Middle School Competes at BU Academy

In robot action the Melrose Middle School Lego League team sucesfully competed at the Boston Unviversity Academy "Food Factor" First Lego League competition within a field of 30 plus other teams from the greater New England area. The iRaiders middle school squad completed all three parts of the competition including a powerpoint project presentation, juding on core values, and competing in multiple rounds of robot competition with  Mindstorm based robots. High school for the day was 91 points.

The Lego League program uses legos to explore scientific concepts. This year the theme of the event was to examine the food supply chain and issues that affect the safety of that food chain from havest through to the consumer.

In an the action shot at right Sam and Devontae line up their robot to go rescue pizza and ice cream that are sitting in an unrefridgerated space. Other robot missions included removing bacteria, rescuing a truck with freshly harvested produce, measuring the temperature, cleaning bad bacteria. The team had been meeting twice per week as part of an after school program at the Middle School.

In the words of one parent, "this program has been excellent for my son. He has really become self motivated and actively drives his own participation."

 

2011 Melrose Kitchen Tour

The  Melrose Kitchen Tour last week was a huge success for the Melrose iRaiders. The iRaiders succesfully made a big dent in their overall fundraising goals from the Kitchen Tour. The tour covered 10 kitchens from around Melrose. Participants drove from kitchen to kitchen to kitchen, in many cases travelin gwith the same group of people.  Local vendors provided food and flowers to help make the event more festive.  In several cases contractors and designers were present to provide detailed informatoin on how the kitchen was conceived and built. I interviewed a couple people at 61 Willow St. and here are a couple comments on the Kitchen Tour. Marry Eldringhoff said, “My favorite place was 1 Sherwood Rd. I really enjoyed it. I really liked how they had the original cabinets, and I really liked the flooring. It was the first house I visited.” Brenda Freitas said, “79 Sheffield Rd. was my favorite house.”

Melrose iRaiders Annual Kitchen Tour, Nov 13th

The Melrose iRaiders and 10 very gracious kitchen owners will host the 4^th annual Melrose Kitchen Tour on Sunday, November 13 from 1-5 pm. The tour is a driving tour that includes 10 terrific kitchens.

This year promises appeal to a wide variety of interests. We have a striking and clever “design on a dime” kitchen, a mid-century modern vintage kitchen featuring original Geneva cabinets, a sleek contemporary and even an outdoor kitchen!  All 10 kitchens are great examples of Melrose originality and creativity! The tour also features tasty munchies and beautiful flower arrangements in every kitchen contributed by local eateries and florists.

We have upped the ante at the raffle table, adding some very high-value prizes like a Sunday River summer weekend and design/goods prizes from some of the kitchen designers behind the kitchens. Raffle tickets will be sold at any kitchen that has a raffle prize.

The Melrose Kitchen Tour will be held rain or shine! Don’t miss it!

Tickets are $20.00 each, available at Brad Hutchinson RE, 193 Green St.; RE/MAX Heritage RE, 536 Main St.; Sexton and Donahue Century 21, 29 Essex St.; and Sit ‘n Knit, 167 W. Emerson St. Tickets also available at Heartwood Kitchens in Danvers, and  from any iRAIDERS, VEX, or FIRST Lego League team members, or purchase online at this website.

iRaiders at BeantownBlitz, best finish in past three years

Just posted a Youtube video of the iRaiders' last preliminary round match at the BeanTownBlitz in which the robot scored a complete logo on the middle pegs. Mike was driving, Andrew Harding controlled the lift and arm, and Innocent fed the game piece through the slot.

Overall the team finished in 10th place in a field of 34 teams.

iRaiders Vex Team Wins Programming Skills World Championship

The Melrose Middle School iRaiders Team #2713A receive their award for becoming World Champions in the Programming Skills Competition at VEX World Championship held in Florida over the spring break. In addition to beating all the other middle school teams they also beat 392 out of the 400 high school teams that entered by placing 8th out of all teams. On the competition field they finished tied for 37th place out of a 103 team field that was dominated by teams from China.

 

In the photo are, left to right, Matt Mroz, Colin Hegarty (holding the trophy), Kyle Yee (in front of Colin), Kari Byron, Abraham Zimmerman, and Joe Valente. The kids are all 8th graders at Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School.

The path for this your iRaiders squad started in the robot labs of Melrose High School in December. After winning both the overall championship and the programming skills at both the regionals and state championshpi they spent another 3-4 weeks tuning the software, reviewing game strategy from other events held around the world, and improving their overal robot.

In the final two weeks they meet for 14 consecutive days refining the autonomous mode of the robot. In this mode the robot had to score as many points as it could without any human control. By scoring 30 points in a single round they locked up the World Championship position.

Video of the presentation can be watched below.

 

 

 

 

 

 



Melrose iRaiders make it to the quarter finals at Boston Regionals

After a gripper shattering round #2 the iRaiders went on to win the next two rounds, and ultimately fix their gripper and completely rebuild their minibot. Prior to the 9th round the team installed a new motor on the forearm which alleviated the three motor burnouts that had hampered that part of the robot prior in prior rounds.

The iRaiders exited the field after a loss in the 10th round to sit on the side lines as the top 8 out of 51 teams picked other teams to join them on their alliance. The iRaiders were picked in the first round by the Lynn Tech Robotics team #1761. This led a mad dash to the pit as the team scrambled to jettison weight to get back under the weight limit, and repair the lift. Team capture Mike (pictured at left) is all smiles in the pit after the selection process.

An alliance huddle was used to plan th e team's strategy as they faced  the top seeded alliance.   The quarter finals were played as a best of three matches. The iRaiders alliance learned from the first round, to shave 52 points off the score of the apposing alliance, but it still wasn't enough to make it into the semifinals. Ultimately. Their opposition in the quarter finals went on to win the Boston Regional championship.