Four FTC teams converged on Morgan State University's campus Friday, Sept. 21, 2012. Three were veterans and one rookie team. All were happy to be there. Team 5956, Thurgood Marshall Academy; 5298, The Engineering High Council (EHC); 4081, The Droids; and 2843, Under the Son were there to do battle, not against each other, but against the unknown. We all learned something that day. Mr. Bill Duncan and Michael Kaurich joined the teams that day to liason between FIRST and the NTA attendees.

When we arrived, we were met with "Hi, how can we help?" Only two trips to the cars were required to move everything into the student center. Many hands made light work. The field was up in a flash. The FCS took a little longer. It wouldn't connect to the robots. David was having trouble understanding why. It appears that someone had plugged the router improperly into the system (you've got two guesses). The teams moved their robots to their pits, and some even brought the display boards that they made for last season.

The field was set with the elements from Bowled Over, the 2011-2012 season's game. Teams 4081, 5298, and 2843 brought their robots. Mr. Duncan brought some robots for team 5956. With four teams, one field, and enthusiastic drivers, we played ten matches of randomly paired alliances. After ranking, we played elimination matches. This was to familiarize the rookie team with the way a qualifier or competition would be run.

Mary and Laura, dressed in last year's pirate uniforms, operated Jack for the qualifying and elimination rounds. Erik and Mary drove some free-fun rounds after the more (or less) formal rounds. Jack performed very well in autonomous mode. He moved himself and the bowling ball to the corner for most matches. He pushed the bowling ball onto the ramp, and he even lifted a crate once!

Mary and Laura were the operator and driver for Jack, but we didn't have an on-field coach; Erik was operating the FCS. The Droids kindly agreed to provide an on-field coach...for a price...Mary's tie-dye hat! We think it actually fits pretty well with the blue Droid shirts! The Droids were meant to be pirates - check out the pictures as proof.

The music was being played throughout the day. We just couldn't compete the whole time. Cotton Eye Joe came on, and we were off - the playing field that is! The Thurgood Martial team has an avid dancer. We showed him how to Quake too! Team Quake taught us a new dance last year, and we have passed it on. The Macarena, chicken dance, Cupid Shuffle, were crowd pleasers. Lydean even danced to Popcorn, by Hot Butter, although she did it all alone, sniff :>(

Team 4081's robot wouldn't respond to the joystick controller. After some debugging, the pragmas were corrected (the brick was beeping, which is one sign of bad pragmas). After those were corrected, the robot still wouldn't respond. Finally David cycled power, and that fixed the problem. During a couple of rounds their robot executed an autonomous that would drive in and out of the corner scoring zone. It was great fun for the crowd to cheer for it and then sigh as it drove in and out of the zone. It was able to lift a crate during at least one match. It did many other good things, but our attention was just a bit distracted with our own robot.

For one of Jack's matches, the robot would only move one side of its drive train. Mary's controller caused only one side to move, when it wasn't supposed to control either side of the drive train. At some point during the match, they realized that the wrong program was being executed. Erik had used that brick to test a drive train we plan to use this year. Well, at least autonomous worked during that match.

After all of the matches, we were ready to head home. After the car was packed, we attempted to find our way out of Baltimore. The GPSs were spot-on. Too bad the drivers weren't so. We counted our blessing though. The extra time kept us from hitting stopped traffic on I-97. All of the other roads were heavy with traffic, and we spent a lot more time in the car on the way home. When we finally arrived, the pizza - the staple of robotics teams - tasted wonderful. It was so good to be home!