Last weekend marked the last OCCRA tournament of the season, the County Championship. This tournament worked in a different way than others. Our team competed in 2 matches before an alliance selection. How does an alliance selection work? Teams pick their alliance partner that they wish to compete with for the rest of the tournament. If they are able to, teams pick an alliance that works effectively and corresponds to their needs. At the end of the day, the Shambots received the “Victorious Perseverance” for showing progress throughout the season. The judges commented that they noticed improvements during tournaments.
Category: OCCRA Tournaments
Tournament #4 November 10, 2016
The last tournament showed the Shambots’ best performance yet! Before heading off to Birmingham, Michigan, the team decided to change their strategy by entering the competition as a defense robot. By removing the arm they were able to prevent opposing teams from scoring and move around the playing field easier. They finished with a 2-2 record, the best one of the season thus far! Way to go Shambots!
Tournament #3 November 5, 2016
Our team traveled to tournament #3 of the OCCRA season at Rochester Adams High School on Saturday, November 5th. We competed against the other teams in the Diversity Challenges. Our first match was a boys and girls match with one female and one male driver, along with boys and girls in the pit crew, a sideline coach and a human player. The team used the time in the pit to make mechanical improvements to the robot and a successful point was scored during the match. After a welcome lunch of homemade macaroni and cheese, the adult match began. Mothers and fathers of OCCRA team members participated in all aspects of the adult match. They even scored points! The last match of the Diversity Tournament was the all-girls match. Gina, Lauren, Rachel, Grace, and Aniela (all students at St. Catherine of Siena and the only girls on the team) led the robot in the pit crew and driving team.
OCCRA robots
It was a success and very fun competition! Go CC Shambots!
Tournament #2 October 27, 2016
Last Thursday, the Shambots traveled to Waterford for the 2nd OCCRA tournament of the season. The schedule worked similarly to the previous tournament with 21 total matches, each team competing four times. Members of the team drove, scouted the other teams, queued, worked on the robot in the pit, updated social media pages and so much more! During the tournament, the programming malfunctioned but the team persevered and fixed it on the spot. The arm also did not work as planned, but now the Shambots will work to improve it and make it a more efficient robot arm to lift the balls. Finally, the intake did not work to its potential; however, a new design is being worked on, and the team plans on being more prepared than ever for the Diversity Tournament!
Tournament #1, October 22, 2016
The CC Shambots brought the robot to the first OCCRA tournament of the 2016-2017 season that took place at West Bloomfield High School. Throughout the day, Shambots had jobs such as scouting, driving, and making adjustments on the robot. Volunteers from the team also assisted in queuing, making sure teams got to matches on time and helping the tournament run smoothly. The team competed in 4 matches and finished with 1 win, 2 losses and 1 tie.
The Village Workshop
The Village Workshop is a maker space in downtown Northville that is a sponsor of the CC Shambots. The Village Workshop provides the team members with knowledge through a plethora of classes and training on their equipment. The Village Workshop offers classes to improve the Shambots’ knowledge of how to build the robot. The Shambots use three major spaces at The Village Workshop: the wood shop, machine shop and metal shop. Each of these areas help the Shambots learn how to use both new and old machines along with new techniques. The Village Workshop has been a massive part in helping our CC Shambots improve their ways of building and will continue to help all of our new Shambots. During the six weeks between the OCCRA and FIRST robotics seasons in November and December the team will be participating in many classes to improve our skills.
The Home Depot
After our 2016 season concluded, the team took a trip to Home Depot to give a sponsor presentation. We gave them a basic explanation of how our robot works, what the game was, and how far we made it into the competition. We were also able to do a demo with our bot and point out all the pieces that we got from their store. Big thanks to The Home Depot for supporting our season and robot, we hope to continue our partnership over this year!
2016 OCCRA Season
This year of OCCRA the CC Shambots will be playing “Go 4 It” which is similar to a giant robot “Connect Four” game. The robot will have to reach or shoot over 6 feet into a large construct of 7 rows for the 10 inch balls to be scored in and then pull up 4 feet on a 6 foot structure. Our competition season begins on October 22nd with the first event. We will compete in five competitions in October and November with the final event on November 19th. In between competitions we will be refining the robot.
CC Shambots 