The FTC-Iowa team continues to be amazed with the tasks and challenges the teams are accomplishing at this stage of the season. Although we had seen a few of the teams at the Oct. 1 Skills Driving Event, there were a few teams who we haven't seen since Kick-Off.
Teams are getting a great start, with the mechanics of the robot, if they follow the TETRIX Getting Started Guide. Kudos, to the folks at LEGO Education who developed the Guide! Also, teams are also benefiting from the redesign of LabView for LEGO Mindstorms. Kudos, National Instruments!
During the scrimmage, we held two workshop sessions of LabView training. Thank you, Andy Marshall, for leading these workshops! We also had hardware and software inspections. Thank You, Leon Turner, Art Roderick, and Craig Martinson for being our inspectors!
What we learned at the scrimmage:
- Bowling balls (and racquetballs) have a mind of their own.
- Everyone on the team should be familiar with the Game Manual.
- Adaptors help with "flashing" the Samantha. (These are USB A-USB B female adaptors, see picture.)
- if the team does not want to have "drop-outs" during a match, the Samantha module needs to be properly and securely mounted onto the robot. (See recommendations on usfirst.org website)
- Teams learn so much when they work with, and next to, other teams.
http://drupal.engineering.uiowa.edu/ftc-iowa-qualifier-tournaments-2011-assignments
Thank you to all of the teams, coaches, mentors and volunteers who attended the Ankeny Scrimmage!
P.S. No racquetballs were "injured" at the Ankeny scrimmage.
