FTC-Iowa: Oelwein Scrimmage (10/22/2011)

The FTC-Iowa Scrimmage in Oelwein was a huge success! We had seven teams attending and one brand new team who observed. Amazing! Thank you, team #4329 for hosting!!

A few things we learned:

• With the new TETRIX Getting Started Guide, teams were more prepared when they attended the scrimmage event. All of the teams had some sort of robot and many of the teams were focusing on manipulation of the scoring elements (whether it was the crates, racquetballs or the bowling balls.)
• The new LabView for LEGO Mindstorms (LVLM) software is giving teams is great start on programming through the tutorials and the schmatic diagram.
• Several teams had autonomous programs for the robots! (This is a HUGE advancement from last season, again, thanks to LVLM!)
• Some of the racquetballs will break (see picture)
• Robots will cause chaos on the field with 100 racquetballs.
• Bowling balls have a mind of their own. They won't necessarily do as they are "told".

Overall, we were very impressed with the level of achievement and stage of development of the robots and teams.  We ran about 20 matches and several of them were full matches -- meaning four robots were on the field.

Be ready! The teams are going to do some amazing stuff this season!!

Our next scrimmage is this Saturday (Oct. 29th) in Ankeny, Iowa.