Bet You Didn't 

Know That!

Hey everyone, Sudarshan and Danil here.

Since the start of the year we have worked on developing a robot for the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). This competition involves teams of students designing, building and programming washing machine sized robots to complete tasks on a basketball court sized field. This year, the robots had to be able to shoot giant tennis balls into a vertical goal and traverse diagonally rising monkey bars.

We were recently in Sydney competing in the Southern Cross Regionals. The event had over 30 teams from all over Australia competing with each team having between 5 to 40 students. The event ran over 3 days with the first day for practice, second day for qualification matches and the third day for the finals. In each game, there are two alliances of three teams each trying to score as many points as they can in 2:30 minutes.

I (Sudarshan), joined Team Dangerous Minds 8875 last year. We’re a rookie FRC team of 7 students. This year, our team finished qualification in 11th place and won the Safety, highest ranked rookie and best rookie team awards.

Dangerous Minds also competes in the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC). FTC is similar to FRC but uses microwave sized robots and is played on a smaller field. Over the Easter holidays, my team will be going to Houston, Texas to compete in the World Championship for FTC.

I (Danil), have been competing in FIRST competitions since year 4 (in FIRST Lego League and FRC) but only joined team IC Robotics 5584 this year. We managed to end up ranking 4th at the end of the qualification matches and were picked into the 2nd seeded alliance. Our alliance was able to get to the finals, but unfortunately our luck ran out when it turned out our battery wires were frayed and our robot powered off during the most important game of the competition, making us the runners-up.

Joining robotics teams has allowed us to extend on what we have learnt in school and apply it in the real world. FIRST is “More Than Robots”. Other than learning about robotics, students gain personal skills whilst also learning about fundraising and conducting outreach. You don’t need any experience to get involved in FIRST. 

If you’re interested in getting involved in robotics at JMSS, feel free to join the Robotics Club running every Tuesday lunch in the GO rooms.  

By Sudarshan Shorna Kumar & Danil Yahnov