On March 16-18, the Funky Monkeys traveled to New York City to compete in the New York City Regional.
March 16th was a practice day for the teams. Teams took turns going on the field to test out communication and practice driving. The Funky Monkeys took the first part of the day installing the shooter that had been left off of the robot during shipping for modifications. They also took time to test out all of the systems on the robot, including the pneumatics and ball intake system. After finishing up the final touches on the robot, the drive team took the Tail of the Monkey for a spin on the field. Unfortunately, in the middle of the match, the robot stopped responding and lost communications with the driver station. The same issue came up again in later trials. The software team attempted to solve the issue with the little time they had in the day. The team left as the pits closed, hoping that they had figured out a solution for the communication issues.
March 17th was the first day of Qualification Matches. The Tail of the Monkey took the stage in the third match of the day. After shooting its two hybrid balls, it was time for the tele-operated period. Ten seconds into the period, the robot stopped responding. Despite all of the work that was done the day before, the robot still had issues communicating with the field and the driver station. Fortunately, the Funky Monkeys and their alliance were still able to come up with a victory. The next four matches ended up playing very similarly to the first match. The Tail of the Monkey would score at least one of its two hybrid basketballs, but it would lose communication for about thirty seconds in the match. After regaining control, the drive team would score a couple more balls before going to balance on the bridge. Team 846, despite having these communication issues, was able to win the first five matches, and even hold the first seed position for a short period of time. However, in the last match of the day, the problem started to really show its affects. Again, the Tail of the Monkey failed to respond in the middle of the match. It had also failed to score any hybrid points. With the time lost to the communication issue, Team 846′s alliance was only able to score 4 points, while the opponents scored 9. At the end of the day, the Funky Monkeys had lost the first seed position, lost its undefeated record, and still had yet to solve the communication issue. However, during the awards ceremony, the team was pleasantly surprised when they were called upon as the winners of the regional Engineering Excellence Award. All of the hard work put into creating the logs documenting the team’s work on the shooter and other systems had paid off. The team went back to the hotel happy, but still uneasy, as the communication issue had yet to be resolved.
Day 3, March 18th had more Qualification Matches, as well as the Elimination Matches. While the software team continued to work with the FIRST FTAs to find a solution, the robot fared to be 1-1-0 in the day’s Qualification Matches. Finishing the seeding matches with a record of 6-2-0 despite communication issues, the team failed to place in the top eight, because they only had 12 Qualification Points. The Funky Monkeys were picked by the 8th alliance, as they joined forces with Team 694 and Team 3059 to take on the first seeded alliance, consisting of Teams 1676, 2168, and 329. In the first match, disaster struck. Even after putting in so much effort in the past three days, the Tail of the Monkey still lost communication with the driver station. Unable to move for much of the match, the eighth alliance fell short, with the score of 43-4. After much deliberation with the team’s alliance mates, the Funky Monkeys agreed to give up their spot in the alliance and called for a replacement team. For the Tail of the Monkey, the competition was over.
However, the competition was far from over for the rest of the crowd. Spectators cheered as they watched alliances battle it out for a spot in the Finals. In the Semi-Final round, the seventh-seed alliance upset the first-seed with its consistent hybrid mode shooting and an incredible ability to triple balance. This same alliance, consisting of Teams 1635, 522, and 125, used this same strategy to defeat its opponents in the finals to become the regional champions.
Team 846 had a solid performance at the New York City Regional. Even while being plagued with communication issues throughout the competition, the team was able to finish with a 6-3-0 record. The Funky Monkeys are excited and looking forward for their next competition at the Silicon Valley Regional, where they will compete against teams such as Team 254, last year’s World Champions. With nearly two weeks in between to work on solving the communication issues, the team is hoping to put on a better show without as many issues at SVR on March 29-31.
