Robotics Team 1100 is hustling to the finals of the New England district competition, championship, and beyond.  Everyone is busily working as the six week build season begins in order to be ready for the first Qualification Match on March 13 at WPI.

Now that the 2014 season has begun, the team begins the long process of competing.

“First day of the season, kickoff, we get the rulebook, we get the game, and a video of what the game should look like.  The rules only give you so much.  The animation helps teams to figure out what they can do,” junior robotics member Manisha Rajaghatta said.

With the season already underway, the game has been announced to all of the teams nationwide.  The competition’s nationwide challenge this year is “Aerial Assist.”

“The whole point behind the game is there are three robots on each side of the field, and there are four goals on both side with a giant volleyball net, per se, in the center.  The robots are allowed to under the net and back and forth, there are also three zones.  The point is to score one large two-foot diameter ball that’s passed between the robots for points and passed over the net and then caught to score extra points,” senior Manipulator sub-team leader Tim Reuter said.

There is a lot of work that goes into the competition, and during the build season most of that work happens at the school.

“It takes fairly complex software to run the machine.  There’s an electrical sub-team that will be figuring out how everything will be wired and actually doing the wiring for the brain of the robot, the speed controllers and the motors,” robotics advisor and Applied Arts and Technology teacher George Clarke said.

The team has plenty of underclassmen that enter the team as novices and soon become instructors.  The five sub-teams include: CAD, Manipulator, Chassis, Business, and Facilities for a team of over sixty people.

“It’s hard being a freshman because you really don’t know what you’re doing at first and all the words just don’t make sense, but afterwards it really starts to flow and it’s nice to be able to teach the younger students,” sophomore Chassis sub-team member David Tennyson said.

As a Chassis sub-team member, Tennyson works on the main body of the robot, including wheels, motors and the driving process.  While other groups, like the CAD team, create a fully functional digital model of the robot in order to avoid design and programming errors.

“It’s occasionally difficult being a freshman on a team with all the grades. There’s a lot that we don’t know, and there isn’t a lot that we can do until we gather more knowledge about it, but the upperclassmen are very helpful,” freshman CAD team member Tess Herdman said. With a large team, many upperclassmen are tasked with overseeing the sub-teams.

“The biggest issue can sometimes be making sure that everyone is under control. Although socialization and communication are key, if it gets out of control, we can’t get any work done,” junior Sven Patterson said.

Over the past few years the team has come close to being ranked first in their competition several times, securing a semi-finalist spot each season.

“We need to make sure we avoid over-planning and over designing. The past few years we’ve taken too long on coming up with what we’re going to be building, and we only have six weeks to build this robot,” senior Robotics captain Nicolette Vere said.

“I hope in the next four years I can help the team get to the [competition] finals again. It’s kind of less intimidating and more ‘we did it once, we can do it again’ instead of fear that we won’t measure up [to last year’s team],” Herdman said.