Welcome to the official website of the 2014 Sonoma County Robotics Challenge! Here you’ll find event general information and results from the competition.
2014 Sonoma County Robotics Challenge
Saturday, May 3, 2014
9:00am-2:00pm
Elsie Allen High School
599 Bellevue Avenue, Santa Rosa
Results
Sumo NXT/EV3
1st Place | Strawberry School
2nd Place | Austin Creek School
3rd Place | Twin Hills Middle School
Sumo RCX
1st Place | Santa Rosa Accelerated Charter School
2nd Place | Roseland District
3rd Place | Kenwood School
Drag NXT/EV3
1st Place | Austin Creek School
2nd Place | Kashia School
3rd Place | Austin Creek School/Sonoma Country Day School
Drag RCX
1st Place | Meadow School
2nd Place | Roseland District
3rd Place | Meadow School
Beginner Free Form
1st Place | Santa Rosa Accelerated Charter School
2nd Place | Santa Rosa French American Charter School
3rd Place | Proctor Terrace School
Advanced Free Form
1st Place | Sonoma Country Day School
2nd Place | Kashia School
3rd Place | Kashia School
Shot Put
1st Place | Austin Creek/Sonoma Country Day School
2nd Place | Meadow School
3rd Place | Hillcrest School
Bulldozer
1st Place | Austin Creek/Sonoma Country Day School
2nd Place | Santa Rosa Accelerated Charter School
Programming Challenge Event
1st Place | Santa Rosa Accelerated Charter School
Special Awards
Genius Programmer Award | Willowside School
Golden Propeller Head Award | Meadow School
Grand Gearhead Award for Mechanical Design | Roseland District
Team Spirit | Strawberry School
Official Rules
Bull Dozer | Bull Dozer Rules (pdf) – revised 3/11/14
This event takes place in a 4-foot by 4-foot space with 8-ounce soda cans filled with sand. Competitors must design robots that detect the cans and bull doze them to “target areas.” The winning robot is the one that earns the most points by pushing the soda cans to the target areas in the least amount of time.
Drag Racing | Drag Racing Rules (pdf)
The objective of this contest is to race your robot on a track that is 16 feet long and beat your opponent to the finish line. This year’s drag racing competition is open to grade 4-5 students only.
Free Form | Free Form Rules (pdf)
This year’s Free Form event challenges teams to explore the theme of “Soccer” with bonus points added for creating a routine or story on this theme. Entries will be judged on the robot’s ability to follow action scripts, difficulty of tasks, and adherence to the theme. Participants may choose to enter the Beginning or Advanced competition categories in this event.
Off Road Racing | Off Road Racing Rules (pdf)
Off Road Racing involves a 16-foot long course with blocks of wood placed at different intervals. The object of this event is to overcome the barriers, stay on track, and finish with the best time.
Shot Put | Shot Put Rules (pdf) – revised 3/27/14
The objective of this challenge is to launch a ping-pong ball as far as possible after navigating a series of prior steps. To receive full points, the robot must successfully navigate winding track, turn 90 degrees, and launch a ping-pong ball. Additional points are added for each centimeter the ball travels before hitting the ground.
Sumo | Sumo Rules (pdf)
Robot sumo wrestling engages two robot contestants in trying to push each other out of a circular ring. The first robot to touch the floor outside of the ring loses. The last robot remaining in the ring wins. NXT and RCX robots no larger than eight inches square can compete for the top award.
NEW! Programming Challenge | Programming Rules (pdf) – updated 3/31/14
New this year, the 2014 event will include a programming challenge for participating students. The challenge involves finding and fixing bugs in a Lego NXT-G program, then loading the program onto a provided robot so that it completes a Sort the Bricks activity. Teams interested in constructing the robot for this challenge may download the design instructions (zip) here; open the link inside the decompressed folder with a web browser.
NEW! Grades 1-3 | Construction & Design Museum | Display Rules (pdf)
Students in grades 1-3 are invited to display their Lego creations in a new Construction and Design Museum at the 2014 Robotics Challenge. Exhibits should focus on this year’s theme – Space Travel. Exhibitors should be present for at least 45 minutes to explain how they constructed and designed their piece.
Tools & Materials
Teams should have these tools and materials with them at the event:
- Garage. A garage keeps your robot covered during downloads and protects other robots from picking up your program and vice versa. It also serves as a container for your robot, protecting it from accidents that can happen in the hustle and bustle of a tournament.
- Printout of your programs to show the judges
- Backup of your programs on CD or flash drive
- Extra batteries (AA or battery pack) and/or NXT battery charger
- Extra LEGO pieces
- Practice course, if one was built
- Infrared programming tower and/or USB connection cable from the kit
- Any other hand tools that the team may need
- Emergency contact numbers for team members
- Note paper and writing utensils
- Camera
- Trinkets to share with other teams (buttons, stickers, etc.)
- Pit decorations
- Lunch or lunch money
- Student participation forms (from Registration Packet)
Awards
Golden Propeller Head: A trophy is given to the team that best represents the spirit of the games by demonstrating excellence in teamwork, mechanical design, programming, and performance. The trophy is kept at their school until the following year’s competition, when it is handed off to the new team. The team’s name is engraved into a plaque on the side of the trophy.
Grand Gear Head Award for Mechanical Design: Awarded to the team whose robot best demonstrates solid mechanical design and function.
Genius Programmer Award: Awarded to the team that demonstrates the best use of robot programming.
Team Spirit Award: This award goes to the team that most enthusiastically demonstrates a commitment to getting others to see how accessible, fun, and rewarding science and technology can be, especially when you’re part of a great team. Displays chronicling your team’s outreach efforts are encouraged.
Best Overall Robot Performance Award: If your robot is performing ahead of the pack and the high scores are racking up, you are destined to receive this award.
Against All Odds Award: If you walked to the tournament in the rain, barefoot, through a jungle of angry robot-hating gorillas, this award may be for you! The award goes to the team that has come from the back of the pack to demonstrate grace under pressure, while improvising and adapting to overcome all obstacles that have been thrown their way.
Contacts
