20 Mar 2017
FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is a sport where people from 14 years old and up, compete head to head on a special playing field with robots that they have designed, built and programmed.
In the Illawarra there are two FRC teams, one based in the south and one in the north. Both teams have students from Smith's Hill. This report comes from the newest FRC team - Komplete Kaos Inc who has four Smith's Hill student members.
The boys and girls have spent the majority of January and February designing, building, and programming a large scale robot for the specified FRC game. Here is a link about the game; www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc
From Monday the 13th March to Wednesday the 15th March Komplete Kaos Inc (team number 6579) competed in the Southern Cross Regionals at Homebush.
The event link is; https://firstaustralia.org/frc-sydney-regional/
We have had a wonderful run at the robotics competition here. The team built a robust and reliable robot, with a well fitted strategy for success. The programming threw up challenges in the lead up to the competition, Jiah Pang (yr10) and Lachlan Cocca (yr10) put in extra hours of work to produce a reliable and consistent scoring robot, with vision tracking, and all programmed in Java.
The qualifying day was huge with 16 matches completed, to finish the qualifiers, ranked 8th - the highest seeded rookie team in the competition. The atmosphere was exciting with 28 teams here from Australia, Taiwan, Singapore, China, Brazil and Vietnam. We entered the playoff aligned with two other teams - Project B (the other Wollongong team) and Ultimo TAFE team.
The alliance went on to win the quarter finals in a nail biting finish where a rough and tumble robot match caused excitement and a ‘down-to-the-line' battle for points. When the celebrations had occurred, and the volunteers entered the field to clean up, the team found out they were given a red card in a controversial judges decision, disqualifying the team from competing in the finals. This incident went world-wide and has caused a lot of discussions on all the forums as it was a highly contentious call. Our team members dealt with the situation with grace and maturity beyond their years.
At the end of the competition Komplete Kaos Inc won Highest Rookie Seed - the highest ranked 1st year team at the end of qualifications. They were also awarded the 'Rookie Allstar Award' which gives them a place to compete in Houston at the World Championships. So it was a bitter sweet day that ended with their achievements and commitment being recognised, and an invitation to compete against the best in the world!
The world FRC championships take place in Houston in April - 19th to the 22nd. It will be live streamed for anyone that's interested. This is a self-funded activity, so if there is any members of the school community that can help get this team and their amazing robot to the United States to learn and compete with the best in the world please get in touch - either via the school or via the team website https://kompletekaosfrc.wordpress.com/