Robotics Beach Blitz
Beach Blitz is an off-season robotics competition for teams to improve upon their robot built from the last season’s competition. This year, however, was unique for Triton Tech since there was no robot to improve upon. Due to COVID-19 during the last season, the team was unable to access their room on CdM campus and did not have a robot built. So, for Beach Blitz this year, team 6072, Triton Tech, had to build it entirely from scratch in a slim amount of time. They were unsure if they would even be able to have a working robot by the time Beach Blitz came, but the team put in long hours and pulled through.
In about two months, they managed to build a working shooter robot from scratch. Excited, but slightly nervous, to see the robot out on the field, the team took their robot, dubbed “the lawnmower” due to it being extraordinarily loud, to competition. The event lasted from Friday to Sunday and was full of incredible robots from across the country. After stepping into the event venue, the Aliso Niguel gym, senior Will Geoghegan commented, “It’s so cool to finally see this stuff in person after a year of waiting.” The field consisted of mats covering the gym floor and a huge structure in the center with the Beach Blitz logo for the robots to hang off of. Each end of the field had targets for the robots to shoot through and spaces for teams to have their drivers control the robot from.
Mechanical and CAD expert on the team, senior Sam Johnson described his experience, saying “Beach blitz was crazy. From when we got there, to when we left, there was never a dull moment. We began with setting up our 10×10 fly station packed with tools, spare parts, and our battery cart. We proudly showed our large sponsor poster. We continued to advance in the ranks through the competition, as our inexperienced drivers gained more trust in the newly built robot, hurriedly switching batteries, wifi controllers, and updating code with the 20 or so minutes in between each match. Our coder, Chris, created a new program for the autonomous mode of the matches while there, no small feat, greatly improving our point-scoring ability. While we were not picked for a seeded alliance at the finish, we were eventually subbed into play because of other broken-down robots during the finals. Overall, it was an amazing experience, filled with a lot of cheering, great team building, and collaborative communities.”
After many intense matches and hours spent improving the robot throughout the competition, team 6072 ended up in rank 17 out of 34. From starting off with a robot without autonomous capabilities to ending with a robot that shot all 3 balls through the target during the autonomous phase, Triton Tech came a long way during this competition, and have many more ahead of them.