News

After two days of seemingly endless seeding rounds, it was the moment of truth for DARC. Would we be chosen by one of the top-seeding teams to become alliance partners for the final matches, or would we be packing KIRB-E (as our bot is called) up for shipping much earlier than we'd hoped in preparation for a long ride back to Decatur? We watched the Alliance Selection Ceremony with bated breath.

It didn't bode well for us as we watched the team we had hoped would chose us to be on their alliance select an invitation from another of the top seeds, but things began to look up when team 337 asked us to join their alliance instead. Needless to say, we graciously accepted their invitation and prepared for the quarterfinal matches that would take place after a short pause for lunch.

Ages seemed to pass before quarterfinals were finally underway. After watching two matches, DARC stepped up to the field alongside our red alliance partners, teams 337 and 281, to face off against a blue alliance of teams 1772, 2751, and 1102. The first match went to the blue alliance after we were disqualified for knocking a robot off the tower during a protected 20 second period. The next four matches would be a series of hard-fought ties where neither team managed to score enough points to beat the other. In the sixth match, the blue alliance was able to get ahead early on and protected their lead throughout the match.

Though we were disappointed that the competition had to end so early in the finals for us, we were glad to have the experience to take with us to Atlanta in just a few weeks. Now that we know more about how the game is played, we feel confident that we will do better at the Championship than we did at the Palmetto Regional.

DARC has finally arrived at Clemson! After a good bearable night's rest, the team is gearing up for the competition. Walking in to Littlejohn Coliseum, one will see the more technical team members meticulously setting up their equipment, FIRST officials applying some finishing touches, and teams hurrying to claim prime areas of seating. The atmosphere isn't quite one of euphoric excitement at the moment, it's more of great expectance. Attendees to the FIRST competition are wanting to see carefully designed robots slam into each other, battering each other into submission. They want to see amazing goals, amazing blocks, and sleek robots. Will the competition live up to this hype? It has yet to be seen. But a good show should be expected, if nothing else.

Check back soon for more updates!

PS: For anyone interested, you can view the competition streaming live (beginning on Friday, March 26th) here.

Recent weeks have been eventful ones for DARC as the day of the FIRST competition in Clemson grows closer. A respectable test field has been built so our drivers can have a relatively accurate look at what they will be experiencing in the real competition. Our robot has been fully transformed from concept to creation, thanks to the hard work of our team members, and although this final version of our robot has been built and shipped off to Clemson (per the rules of this competition), we decided to build a replica of this robot. On this, our programmers have been testing new functions in the robot's code and fine-tuning the codebase while our drivers have been gaining invaluable experience. It's our hope that this experience and the time we've put into making the robot function to the best of it's abilities. At this point in our competition season, we are focusing primarily on giving our drivers practice time and making fine adjustments. We have a solid robot, we just need to be able to use it correctly.

Check back for more info!

The driver tryout results are in! Congratulations to lead driver Alex, assistant driver Zach, and backup driver Carrie! They will be driving our robot at this year's FIRST competition.

Attention all DARC team members: A new attendance policy has been issued. To view it, click here.

All DARC Team members need to go here to fill out consent forms. Also, there is a parents meeting tomorrow at 7.

We're eagerly getting ready to travel to Auburn this weekend for the South's BEST regional competition. A few important items for team members traveling with us:

• For those going tomorrow (Thursday) night, the bus will be in front of the Austin library (NOT the Incubator) by 8 pm. We will be leaving as soon as those in the band concert are released.
• For those leaving Friday morning, the bus will be leaving from in front of the Austin library (again, NOT the Incubator) promptly at 8 am.
• Please be prepared to pay for two meals (lunch on the way down and dinner on the way home) along with any snacks you may want from the coliseum. Bear in mind the higher prices if purchasing from the concession stand.
• Please bring both of your DARC t-shirts (this year's competition shirt and the 'work' shirt with DARC only on it) to wear at competition. If you do not have one or both t-shirts, bring an Austin or Decatur shirt to wear.
• If you would like to give anyone not going the ability to watch the competition, Auburn will be hosting a webcast here of the day's competition.
• If you haven't already, please follow DARC on Twitter by texting 'follow darcrobotics' (without the quotes) to 40404. This will be our primary method of sending information at competition.

If you have any questions, please contact Mrs. Haddock, Derek, John, Phillip, or Jason. We'll see everyone in Auburn!

The time has almost come to head down to Auburn! Next weekend we’ll meet teams from across the state to compete for the right to go to the national phase of the BEST Competition. We’ve been hard at work since October making improvements to our robot and display table and can’t wait to get to South’s BEST. See you there!

This Saturday we loaded up the robot and headed off to Calhoun Community College for Tennessee Valley BEST competition. After a long day full of matches, we were happy to see that careful strategy and exceptional driving paid off as we won first place in the robotics competition and will be advancing to South’s BEST at Auburn University this December. DARC also placed in these other parts of the BEST competition:

• Igus Top Gun Award
• Best T-shirt Design: 3^rd Place
• Most Robust Robot: 3^rd Place
• Most Elegant Robot: 3^rd Place
• Best Table Display and Interview: 3^rd Place
• Best Project Engineering Notebook: 3^rd Place
• Best Webpage Design: 2^nd Place
• Best Oral Presentation: 1^st Place
• Best Spirit and Sportsmanship: 1^st Place
• BEST Award: 1^st Place

Tennessee Valley BEST Competition Day is tomorrow at Calhoun Community College in Kelley Gym. The competition will run from 9am-5pm with a compliance check starting at 7:30. We hope to see you there!

Mall Day was held at Madison Square Mall in Huntsville this afternoon. DARC was there taking the robot out for a test run on the playing field. Our tests went well, so now there's just a few things left to finish before competition day on the 24th.

Mall Day always takes place on the Saturday of the fifth week of the competition. There will be a working playing field set up for all teams to come and test their robot on. It's a great time to make last minute decisions that can improve your robot's functionality and see what the other teams are thinking.

Mall Day will be held on October the 11th at Madison Square Mall in Huntsville. Be sure to come out and take your robot for a practice run!

Today we went out to Calhoun Community College for the kick-off of Tennessee Valley BEST. Tennessee Valley BEST is a hub of BEST Robotics Inc., a middle and high school robotics competition whose mission is Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology.

The BEST competition consists of two parts: a robotics game and The BEST Award. The robotics game is based on an annual theme with four teams competing at once in a series of three-minute, round-robin matches. The BEST Award is presented to the team that best embodies the concept of Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology. Elements include a project summary notebook, oral presentation, table display, and spirit and sportsmanship.

The theme of this year's robotics game is inspired by recent fluctuations in oil prices. Although many have lobbied for investing in alternative fuel sources, research and development of high-density fuels has brought forth only limited success. None of the energy sources developed has been able to replace fossil as our main source of energy, but scientists in the BEST Robotics think-tank may have made a breakthrough in solving the crisis in the form of their new superchorophyll catalyst that should facilitate the production of long hydro-carbon chain molecules from CO2 and H2O.

The only thing standing in the way of the public announcement of their breakthrough is a few more tests to prove the concept and demonstrate that the reactions can be efficiently performed in an automated environment. Due to cost constraints, these tests will be run by teams of pre-collegiate students, which is where we come in. Our engineers must now build and demonstrate an automated method of creating those hydro-carbon chains using only the resources and time allotted to us by BEST Inc. Our robots will then compete against the robots of other teams to build the largest inventory of isooctane.

The new DARC Robotics website is currently under construction. Please excuse any strange happenings you experience here for the next few days.