Team OverviewSchool Year 2010-2011

Overview

Systemetric is a robotics team comprised of students at Hills Road Sixth Form College, Cambridge UK

The team’s name comes from the metric system of measurement and ‘system’. The name was chosen as reference to the United States continued use of the imperial system of measurement, where the UK has changed to the metric system

The team has become iconic for wearing British Union Flag waistcoats and bowler hats at the New York City Regional, accompanied by the team slogan “Don’t Walk, Do the Robot”

Hills Road Sixth Form College The college is a sixth form

centre, which means it exclusively has students in their last two years of formal education before University

All of the students at the college are studying for academic A Level courses, the college does not run any vocational courses

The college is one of the foremost academic colleges in the state sector, regularly coming at the top of the national ‘League Tables’ of student performance

Hills Road Sixth Form College There is a very strong reputation for

achievement and academic strength with large numbers of students going to top Universities within the country

The students in the robotics team are mostly studying scientific or technical subjects: mathematics, physics, electronics and computing

Students from the robotics team usually go on to scientific, mathematical or engineering degrees

Funding

We are entirely self-funded and rely on the generosity of parents, donations, fundraising and most importantly, sponsorship

This enables us to undertake the building and operation of a robot in the New York City Regional of the FIRST Robotics Competition

Current Sponsors

We would like to thank our current sponsors for their support

The Competition

The team was formed in December 2001 It began when an American student, Ankur

Mehkta, on exchange to Cambridge University from MIT was looking for a group of students to continue his involvement in FIRST

A group of about 12 students leapt at the chance to try their hand at robotics, and the team was born, becoming the first from the UK to enter

We recruited two engineering mentors, parents of some of the initial team members, and constructed our first robot ‘Spork’

The Competition

Our first visit to New York was a success, and filled with enthusiasm we have continued to the present, now in our 10th year of competition

This year the team is made up of 34 students from both years, with just under a third in the Upper Sixth, either newly joined or veterans from the previous year, while all the lower sixth are new to the competition

FIRST

FIRST is a not-for-profit organization which encourages young people to discover and develop a passion for science, engineering and technology

Founded in 1989 by inventor Dean Kamen, the 2009-2010 FIRST season attracted over 212,000 students, 57,000 mentors and coaches, and over 33,000 other volunteers

FIRST

The FIRST Robotics Competition stages short games played by autonomous and remote-controlled robots

The robots are designed and built in 6 weeks, from of a common set of parts, by students and a handful of professional engineer mentors

The robots are built under strict rules, limited resources and time limits

It's as close to "real world" engineering that a student can get.

FIRST

The competition is played out through a series of Regional competitions throughout the US

We regularly compete in the New York City Regional, which is now one of the biggest, last year having 63 teams attending

The arena measures 54ft by 27ft (18m x 9m) with a variety of targets and goals, which changes year-on-year

This is a challenge, one which will stretch the students abilities, but will prepare them for their futures!

NYC Regional Background The competition takes place

over a period of 3 days

Day 1: Spent on practice rounds, played in a live environment but not scoring. This allows teams to resolve issues prior to the competition

Day 2: A ‘seeding’ day where robots compete with other random robots

Day 3: Seeding continues, then the top 8 seeded teams pick alliances to compete in the final rounds of the competition

NYC Regional Background The purpose of the

competition is to encourage the up-and-coming engineers and technicians of the future, to set problems and to build team allegiances in preparation for their careers in industry

These are not toy robots, but devices built to achieve challenging targets

Achievements

2002 FRC New York City Regional

Sportsmanship Award

FRC New York City Regional Semi-Finalists

2003 FRC New York City Regional Xerox

Creativity Award

FRC New York City Regional 3rd place

2004 FRC New York City Regional Winners

2005 FRC New York City Regional Imagery

Award

FRC New York City Regional Quarter-Finalists

2006 FRC New York City Regional Finalists

2007 FRC New York City Regional Semi-

Finalists

2008 FRC New York City Regional Quarter-

Finalists

2009 FRC New York City Regional 29th out of

66

2010 FRC New York City Regional 47th out of

63

mbed Robot Racing Cambridge 1st place

mbed Robot Racing Global 2nd place

Our RobotsAs built for each years competition games

2002: Spork

Named Spork for no particular reason

Cobbled together from what scraps of Aluminium, Perspex and Plywood we could find and scrounge from local metal suppliers scrap bins

Using two wheel drive and a pneumatic grabber it proved itself to be a reliable, nimble and effective machine

The object of the game was to collect footballs from the field and place them in a vertical cage, known as the ‘goal’

The goals were mobile and the score for a team was increased if a goal was moved to an end zone

2003: Stealth Hedgehog

The second year of competition saw the robot beginning to show some hallmarks of the ‘Systemetric approach’

The frame was built from welded steel tubing and employed a mix of both pneumatic and electrical controls

The robot won the Xerox Creativity Award for our innovative mechanism for stacking the target crates

This competition involved pushing crates into the team scoring zone and trying to make stacks

The scoring was to take the number of crates in the zone and multiply by the highest stack

To complicate things further, the middle of the floor was elevated, and approached by ramps from each side.

2004: The Rt.Hon. Charles Erasmus Worthington-Smythe III Esq. OBE

The competition was very elaborate, including ramps and steps for the robots to try and climb, with bonus points scored at the end of the competition by robots hoisting themselves off the floor on a metal bar which ran across the width of the field in the middle of the sides 10 inches off the ground. There was also big and small balls to gather and hurl into target goals

Unfortunately the team had neglected fundamental rules regarding the robots weight, and shipped it overweight

This meant in New York the robot had to undergo some radical surgery

The robot had been very ambitious and tried to do most the objectives, but the weight limit meant a lot of the functionality had to be removed

2005: Eric

The forth year saw the first of the high lifting robots, ‘Eric’

Used a four-bar mechanism to reach the highest part of the ‘tetra’ challenges

The design had learnt the lesson of previous years and was well within the weight and size limits imposed

Once again, the team was successful and ended up seeded 11th, which was enough to see the team selected for the knock out rounds where they reached the quater-finals

2006: Conicio

The aim of the game was to collect balls (about football sized) from the field and get them into goals at the ‘enemy’s’ end zone

Combined the ability to pick up balls from the floor and to either shoot them at a high goal, or roll them into either of the two low goals

This ability to select the target by the robot from a variety of options led to a very successful competition

The robot reached the 7th seeded place After some internal selection amongst

the seeded team we were eventually the 5th seeded alliance when partners were picked

After a series of tough competition, the robot was eventually beaten in the final

2007: Mothzilla

The design returned to four-bar linkage for the lifting arm which was once again successful

An upper sixth student was able to successfully program the vision system to operate in autonomous mode (thought it was defeated by lighting conditions at the regional)

The light seeking nature of our robot and the jaw like operation of the grabber on the end of the arm led to it being dubbed ‘Mothzilla’

Although we did not seed particularly highly, we were selected by the 2nd seeded alliance and were able to fight bravely through to the semi-finals

We used a worm gear to lift the arm, which proved very successful

2008: Hugzilla

This robot saw a third lifting arm design, and a third different lifting mechanism

A pneumatic system was adopted, a sensible choice since there were only two heights the robot needed to reach

With its huge grabbing arms needed to grasp the enormous 40” ball, which was the main playing piece of the game, it became known as ‘Hugzilla’, setting the trend for the naming of all our ‘arm’ robots

The competition saw the arena turned into a race track, with an oval path all the robots had to follow in a clockwise direction

Across the centre of the loop was a gantry, balanced upon which were four enormous 40” diameter balls

Robots scored bonuses if they could carry or push one of the balls around with them

Hugzilla was picked by one of the top teams and so we entered the knock out rounds

2009: Nessie

2009 saw the return of picking up balls and delivering them to goals, although things were made tricky by robots towing a goal basket behind them

The entire playing area was covered in a low friction surface and the robots had to use specified low friction wheels, which lead to a game which was slightly more down to random chance

The team was unlucky in some of the matches so ended up unseeded and, for the first time, the team was not picked for a final alliance, although the team was actually ranked 29th out of the 64 teams at New York

2010: Colosson

Designed to kick footballs into goals on both ends of the arena

It used a 3 wheel drive system with deployable casters for quick and easy turning. The robot was capable of going over ramps on the arena, and was also small enough to pass through tunnels in the ramps. It was also capable of blocking other team’s robots from scoring

Unfortunately technical issues during some of the matches played by the robot severely hindered our competition ranks. During one match power issues with the robot's radio meant the robot was unable to communicate with the control system and therefore it had to sit out the match. During another match software issues meant that the robot did not respond to commands as intended

Summary

As you can imagine, this exciting project motivates the students on many levels. It is an example of real-world problems and the often short timescales imposed on industry to react to demands

The only assistance the students receive from their elders is advice and mentoring, no other assistance is given and the robot is a direct result of their endeavours

Summary

A total of £15,000 needs to be raised and the students spare time is spent fundraising, through various activities such as allowing people to try driving and operating one of the robots

We hope that you might be in a position to assist the students in entering the competition. Most direct costs, such as air travel and hotels, are met by the students and parents but, overall, the robot build will need funding

Summary

As you can see from the earlier pictures, there are many panels on the robots and we would be more than happy to display the logo or any other detail from a sponsor on them

Events are broadcast via the internet, and Nasa TV has carried events in the past

The students would be pleased to demonstrate one of the robots to anyone interested in assisting them in creating robots for future competitions

You would be, of course, more than welcome to attend and see the huge enthusiasm that this competition creates for the future Leaders of Industry

Contact Details

If you are in a position to help, please contact our team supervisor at:

David MasseyHills Road Sixth Form CollegeHills RoadCambridgeCB2 8PE

E-mail: dmassey@hillsroad.ac.uk

We look forward to hearing from you soon!