In Milwaukee, over 52 teams entered. These teams ranged from high schools, tech schools and corporate sponsored youth teams. The robots are built with standard internal kits part set by FIRST but the design and mechanical engineering is where the uniqueness of the robots comes in.
The event focuses on the main event of an arena type battle. In the center stands tall 10' tree of sorts with three levels of five branches. Though the rules change every year and are not announced until tournament play, I gathered that scoring was done as followed. Three robots on each side have 5 minutes to hang 2' inflatible tubes on the tree to score points. Depending on which level the ring is hung depends on the point value. Another thing the robots can do is lift another robot on its team. By lifting the robot a set height, you can gain 30 bonus points.
The three main classifications of robots witnessed at this event were Arm Robots
(robots whose job is to hang the rings), Lifter Robots (robots whose job is to act as defense until the end of the tournament and then to lift their teammates for bonus) and Pure Defense (robots whose job is to ram into Arm Robots and Lifter Robots to stop them from doing their job) or "lil shits" as I like to call them.
The basketball size arena is split in half. One half being set for the arena and the other was the "pits". The pits are setup for each team to work on their robots between matches. Turn around time had to be quick and it seemed like the robots were brought battle damaged, just to be patched back together to go back out there. The damage of the robots was measured by how many members around it. One or two tightening chains or adjusting link rods and it was in good shape. You have one with 8 guys around it turning tools
and hooking up meters, you can almost see the artificial life slipping away. Over the loudspeakers you can hear announcers calling for assistance "Attention Teams. Team 2012 is in need of a extension coupler rod. If any team has an extension coupler rod, your assistance would be appreciated."Though the goal isn't to destroy, the feeling of a gladiator match is similar. With the fast pace of the robots competing and the sounds of techno and screaming groupies eclipsing the clangs and banging bots, I couldn't help but grin. The sea of students wearing T-Shirts of their schools teams screaming almost like a basketball/football/hockey championship. This was the Super Bowl of Nerds' and it was cool.
