The 2016 season's game is FIRST STRONGHOLD. Teams of three compete to cross the enemy defenses and to score boulders into the enemy tower. Defenses may range from uneven terrain, to a door, to even see-saws, and both low and high goals are available. Teams also have the option to have their robot ascend up the enemy tower to "scale" it at the end of the match for additional points.
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A view of the enemy courtyard. Note the high goal cutouts on the tower.
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As it was our third year, we wanted to do something more complicated that we haven't done before. Instead of going for the safe bet of focusing on defenses or even the low goal, we chose to go for the high goal, and to focus less on defenses, only being able to cross the wheel type defenses and the Cheval de Frise, a see-saw type defense, in addition to taking the severe design constraint of being able to fit under the low bar, a sixteen-inch height clearance bar.
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The resulting robot was June. The main feature of the robot is a pivoting tennis-ball-machine type shooter with two large horizontal shooting wheels that are used both for taking in and shooting the ball. The drive base is made with six, eight-inch Colson wheels, with a C-shaped cutout in the frame to make room for our shooter to pivot; as the whole robot is able to fit under the sixteen inch low bar.
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June lining up for a high goal attempt
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