“To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology heros.”

-Dean Kamen, Founder of FIRST

Team 2868 Smoke and Mirrors is a FIRST For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology  FTC,  FIRST Tech Challenge, Robotics Competition team comprised of a group of high school students from, Lakeland, Tampa and Zephyrhills Florida. Adults serve as mentors guiding the students in engineering technology and computer programming skills, that inspire innovation and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, team work and leadership skills.

Team 2868 Smoke and Mirrors Wins World Championship!!!

Team 2868 Smoke and Mirrors has won the World FTC Championships, which took place in Atlanta on April 14 to 17,  as Team Captain along with Team 2843 Under the Son from Maryland and Team 3864 G – Force from S. Carolina.    This has been an amazing journey from September 2009 when the team started working on the robot design and was a thrilling finish to a wonderful season.

At World Festival, the Top 100 teams were divided into 2 Divisions of 50 teams each, named Edison and Franklin. The 2 divisions were run as two separate competitions with ranking rounds and a division Championship Alliance Winner. Then the two division champion alliances competed for the World Championship Title.  At the end of the 7 rounds after 2 days of ranking rounds, Team 2868 Smoke and Mirrors was the only undefeated team in the Franklin Division and was ranked number one.

We then competed in playoff rounds in semi-finals and finals to emerge as Franklin Division Champions. We then competed against the top 3 teams in the Edison division to win as the World FTC Champions.  There were 3 foreign countries represented – Canada, Mexico and the Netherlands.   An amazing statistic is that counting the 7 ranking matches and the semi-finals (best of 3) and 2 final matchups (best of 3), Team 2868 only lost one match in the semi-final out of the 14 matches.   Both finals were won in just 2 matches.

I can only credit all this on all the hard work and commitment of the 6 members of Team 2868, Andrew Smith, Randall Bendt, Caroline Bresnan, Jacob Hammond, Tyler Hanks and Carson Wolf.   And as co-coach along with Paul Bresnan, we can both say we did not put a single screw or part on the robot.  We progressed quickly from a team that did not correctly wire up the robot the first time we had a working robot to a robot with an extremely robust design that could stand up to the rigors of competition.  Reasons why we emerged on top was that we were strong in not just one category but in many areas – the robot picked up wiffle balls faster than almost all the competition and could store 35 balls in the hopper, we shot the balls faster than most of the competition (the robot was nicknamed “Gatling”) and had a high degree of accuracy and consistent trajectory due to the design of the dual vertical wheeled shooter.  One other reason was the craftsmanship of the robot which was due to the attention to detail from the team building it right.   Many judges and parents commented on how clean and professional the robot looked.

The team did not just stop at engineering a great robot but had participated in many demonstrations to schools and kids in the FLL, VEX and other competitions, in fund raisers which was our signature Robot Sumo one day camps to raise awareness of how fun robots can be and in numerous company visits.    Two kids from the team also helped present a technical session at the World Festival called “Prototype to Final Design – Building the Perfect Robot” which was very well received and participated in the feedback session on FTC at the last day of the divisional rounds.

Though the memory of this winning moment will never quite fade, the team will go on to continue training current members and likely add new members to be part of this great experience.

On behalf of Team 2868, Smoke and Mirrors, we sincerely THANK all of our sponsors for your generosity and support in helping the team and showing us that small starts can lead to wonderful things.

KK Quah, Co-Coach Team 2868 Smoke and Mirrors

kkquah@verizon.net

This year’s 2009-2010 FIRST FTC challenge is named Hotshot. Each match is 2 minutes and 30 seconds long and is played with a total of 80 whiffle balls of which 76 are white and 4 are yellow. The match is played with 4 robots with 2 robots forming an alliance team attempting to out score the other alliance team. Before the match begins each alliance team is given 8 white balls to load as they choose in either or both of their robots. The first 30 seconds of the match the robots attempt to score points in a preprogrammed autonomous mode. After the 30 second autonomous mode is over with 2 minutes remaining the teams operate their robots using remote controls. To obtain the additional 60 white balls not in play the teams must activate 4 ball chutes located in each corner of the playing field. Each ball chute contains 15 balls. In the center of the 12’ x 12’ playing field there is a low goal worth 1 point per ball scored and a high goal worth 5 points per ball scored. There are two goals located 4 feet outside the playing area. During the last 30 seconds of the match balls may be scored in these goals for 10 points each. The yellow balls may be released in the final 30 seconds of the match and will double the total point value in any goal they are scored in.