En este evento, tuvimos la oportunidad de competir contra siete equipos recién formados en la isla. Nuestro equipo, los Borikengineers, estuvo presente con dos robots: Coquitron 1 y Coquitron 2. Aunque ambos robots enfrentaron pequeños percances antes de comenzar, nuestro equipo los resolvió con destreza. Durante los juegos, los robots demostraron su habilidad al completar las tareas sin problemas.

¡Y no solo eso! Además de competir, también brindamos apoyo a otros equipos. Siguiendo el espíritu de Gracious Professionalism®, compartimos conocimientos y ayudamos a resolver problemas técnicos. Esta colaboración entre equipos es fundamental para el crecimiento y el éxito de la comunidad de robótica en Puerto Rico.

Además de la emoción de la competencia, recopilamos datos valiosos que utilizaremos para mejorar la estructura, los mecanismos y la programación de nuestros robots. Estamos ansiosos por aplicar estos aprendizajes en el próximo campeonato oficial de FTC.

En resumen, este evento fue un gran paso adelante para la robótica en Puerto Rico. ¡Estamos orgullosos de ser parte de esta historia y esperamos con entusiasmo el próximo desafío en el campeonato oficial de FTC!

Aquí algunas fotos del evento.

¡Histórico! El pasado fin de semana, Puerto Rico celebró su primer juego de exhibición de FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) gracias a la colaboración entre FIRST Robotics Puerto Rico y Eureka. El evento tuvo lugar como parte del campeonato de FIRST Lego League en el Centro de Convenciones de Puerto Rico. Esta emocionante ocasión marca un hito para la isla y sirve como preámbulo para el campeonato oficial de FTC que se llevará a cabo a mediados de mes.

En este evento, tuvimos la oportunidad de competir contra siete equipos recién formados en la isla. Nuestro equipo, los Borikengineers, estuvo presente con dos robots: Coquitron 1 y Coquitron 2. Aunque ambos robots enfrentaron pequeños percances antes de comenzar, nuestro equipo los resolvió con destreza. Durante los juegos, los robots demostraron su habilidad al completar las tareas sin problemas.

¡Y no solo eso! Además de competir, también brindamos apoyo a otros equipos. Siguiendo el espíritu de Gracious Professionalism®, compartimos conocimientos y ayudamos a resolver problemas técnicos. Esta colaboración entre equipos es fundamental para el crecimiento y el éxito de la comunidad de robótica en Puerto Rico.

Además de la emoción de la competencia, recopilamos datos valiosos que utilizaremos para mejorar la estructura, los mecanismos y la programación de nuestros robots. Estamos ansiosos por aplicar estos aprendizajes en el próximo campeonato oficial de FTC.

En resumen, este evento fue un gran paso adelante para la robótica en Puerto Rico. ¡Estamos orgullosos de ser parte de esta historia y esperamos con entusiasmo el próximo desafío en el campeonato oficial de FTC!

Aquí algunas fotos del evento.

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La llegada de FTC a Puerto Rico es un paso significativo para el desarrollo y la promoción de la tecnología y la innovación entre los jóvenes de la isla. Con competencias locales programadas para comenzar este mismo año, se espera la participación de al menos 12 equipos de robótica procedentes de diferentes regiones de Puerto Rico.

¿Nuevo Equipo en Aguadilla!

Uno de los equipos pioneros en este emocionante capítulo de la robótica en Puerto Rico son “The Borikengineers” de la Escuela Benito Cerezo Vázquez de Aguadilla. Este equipo, conocido por su dedicación y pasión por la robótica, ha sido fundamental en el impulso inicial para que FTC llegue a la isla. Ahora, The Borikengineers celebran un logro aún mayor: el crecimiento de su equipo hasta el punto de poder establecer un segundo equipo, Borikengineers 2.

El equipo original, Borikengineers 1, asumirá el papel de mentor para el recién formado Borikengineers 2. Esta dinámica de “equipo hermano” no solo demuestra el crecimiento y la fortaleza de la comunidad de robótica en Puerto Rico, sino también el compromiso de los equipos más experimentados de apoyar y guiar a los nuevos talentos.

Este desarrollo no solo es un logro para los equipos individuales involucrados, sino también para la comunidad en general. La llegada de FTC a Puerto Rico no solo fomentará la competencia y la innovación en el campo de la robótica, sino que también abrirá nuevas oportunidades educativas y profesionales para los jóvenes interesados en la ciencia, la tecnología, la ingeniería y las matemáticas (STEM).

Con este nuevo capítulo en la historia de la robótica en Puerto Rico, se espera que más jóvenes se inspiren y se involucren en disciplinas relacionadas con la tecnología. ¡El futuro de la robótica en la isla es prometedor, y estamos emocionados de ver cómo se desarrolla este emocionante viaje en los próximos años!

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We tried our best to get the whole team to the qualifier, but unfortunately, we had to settle for sending our drivers/builders, lead programmer to fix any last-minute issues, and the lead presenter. Leaving the rest of the team back in Puerto Rico was not an easy choice, but it was one that had to be done. Our participation in the games is dedicated to all the students of the Benito Cerezo School that could not travel with us. They all worked really hard and enabled us to participate.

Traveling from Puerto Rico to DC comes with its difficulties, starting with the cost. Washington DC is not a popular destination from Puerto Rico, so there are no direct flights. Our trip had a connecting flight, and considerable layover time. That itself makes everything more complex, since now we have to spend money for food in the airport, there could be canceled flights, delays, etc. Also, having a connecting flight increases the possibilities of the robot not getting to the final destination on time, and that would be a disaster! But we didn’t have options. We went to DC against all odds!

We discovered that traveling with a robot is not easy. First thing is that the robot is quite large. Almost 18 inches on each side. We needed a big box. A big toolbox was the obvious option. There are toolboxes that can fit the robot easily. However, the exterior size of those boxes was too large and not accepted by the airline. Another option was to make a wooden box just the right size, about 20″x20″x20″. That would fall within the airline requirements of a regularly sized baggage. We found a really good article made by FTC team 3491 (Fix It) that includes a PDF of how to build the box, but making a wooden box takes time that we could use to make the final adjustments to the robot… The last option was to split the robot in two and put it in a smaller box. Our mentor found a reasonably sized tool box in The Home Depot that was big enough to fit the robot in pieces, and small enough to pass as oversized baggage. We purchased some 2″ foam to use as padding, put the robot parts inside with some extra padding in between them and wished it luck! The downside of doing this is that then you need to put the robot back together, but fortunately our robot is quite modular, as the slider can be separated from the chassis by removing only five bolts, and then the gripper can also be separated from the slider by removing only four bolts. Motor and servo connections were made to facilitate their removal, so that was not a problem either.

And there goes all of our work, in the hands of JetBlue! Thankfully, everything went well, and we got there!

DC 1 Qualifier

The qualifier was held in the District of Columbia International School. There was a table waiting for us, which we quickly decorated with the beautiful flag of Puerto Rico, some Puerto Rican candies, the team’s name and, off course, our robot.

We started practicing right away. We noticed that our autonomous code was a little bit off, probably because of dimensional differences between the official field and our DIY field. Our programming team leader quickly modified it to improve it’s accuracy.

While this was done, the robot was taken to inspection, which it passed without problems.

After this, the robot was taken to the judges for the interview. Unfortunately, pictures are not allowed in the interview rooms. The judges were very interested to know more about our outreach and fund-raising efforts, which included several school visits, show-and-tell presentations, radio interviews, reaching people through our social media accounts, having several sales to raise funds, and visiting several possible sponsors.

Then the games started!

These are official scores. As you can see, we did really well. After all the games were done, we ranked 6th place. Then it was time for the Playoffs. Something we didn’t know, being new to the presential games, is that top ranked teams select other teams to be in their alliances. We were surprised that the team in the second position (Team Vector) selected us as their first choice! We played really well with really good partner and opposing teams. Ultimately, the opposing alliance won.

Then came the awards, and we received the Judges Choice Award for our exceptional outreach efforts.

DC 2 Qualifier

We also participated in the DC2 qualifier the next day. Our luck this time was not the same. Unfortunately, some of our assigned alliance partners confronted problems during their game, like getting stuck, accuracy issues, etc. We did our best to get afloat on our own, but the other teams were really good. We won two of our games and were ranked 9 in the qualifier. However, this day we made changes to our presentation speech and were able to really impress the judges. Our presentation meeting lasted about 40 minutes since the judges wanted to know more and more about our outreach efforts, all of our learning, code improvements, etc. We also were third place for the Inspire Award. The official results were not available at the time of this writing.

In summary, our team made a great performance, especially taking into account this was our first in-person participation. We had a good autonomous code that helped us achieve good points in the first 30 seconds, had excellent drivers that consistently played impeccable games against amazing adversaries, did a great job in our presentations, and finally took two awards home and got medals for the whole team back in the island. All of this surpassed our own expectations and left us willing for the next season to come already.

The Borikengineers will be back!

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We participated in the Chesapeake DC 1 Qualification Tournament yesterday and we had a blast! We won 4 out of the 5 games we played, and ended up 6th in the ranking! We didn’t qualify, but things turned out even more interesting when we were the first pick of one of the winning teams for the elimination rounds! That means a lot to us as it demonstrates that even thought we didn’t qualify, our team and the robot was noticed by other teams!

This were our first in-person games and we surpassed our own expectations! Our team got a lot of experience from this trip. We learned new things, and got a lot of ideas! Next season we will come better prepared and with more energy!

We played in two of the elimination rounds. Ultimately our alliance didn’t win and we didn’t qualify. However, we were surprised with the Judges Choice Award for the excepcional outreach work made by the team in social media, radio, and visits to other schools to show our robot and promote the FIRST program.

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Our mentor mentioned the coiled cables that were used on telephones in the past. That would be a good solution, but after checking the FTC rules, the servo cable must be either the same wire gauge that the servo comes with, or gauge 22. We could not source a coiled telephone cable with documented wire gauge. But we found a method online for creating coiled cables out of regular cable that involves heating the cable while it is wrapped around a wooden dowel. However, since our cable is going to be repeatedly extended, we modified the process a little bit. This post serves as documentation of the process, and we are sharing it so that it is useful to other First Tech Challenge (FTC) teams. Here is the process we followed:

Materials:

• Gauge 22 stranded cable (FTC required gauge for servos). 8 Feet will result in about 2 ft of coiled cable, depending on the rod diameter. We used 4 copper wire shielded and grounded cable. We sourced it locally, but it would be better to use a 3 wire cable instead. This is probably a good choice from Amazon.com: Striveday 22 AWG 4 conductor wire Power Cable Audio Cable Signal Line (Red & Black & yellow & white) 33ft UL certification : Electronics
• Heat shrinking tubes a little bit bigger than the cable diameter.
• Heat shrinking tube a little bit bigger than the individual wires.
• Any kind of rod or wooden dowel, as long as the end length of the coiled cable.
• Hair dryer, or heat gun (better).
• 1 Servo extension cable (short).
• Soldering iron
• Solder
• Multimeter

Process:

1. Insert the cable in two 4 feet long heat shrinking tubes.
   • We used two 4 ft tubes, so we had to add an overlap at the middle by heating one tube a little bit so that it shrinks and can be inserted into the other.
   • Inserting the tubes is not an easy task. The longer the heat shrinking tube, the better the results. Also, using a heat shrinking tube that is just bigger than the cable results in a tighter coil.
   • Leave the ends of the cable free (no heat shrink tube).
2. Wrap the cable around the rod. We used an aluminum rod about 1/2 in.
3. Tape the ends so that it does not uncoil.
   • We noticed that even though the initial wrapping was very tight, as the tubes start to shrink it loses some tightness. It may be better to hold only one end and try to keep the coil tight on the other end while heat is applied.
4. Apply heat to the cable evenly to shrink the tubes. Take your time in this step and make sure the whole length of the cable shrinks. Rotate the rod to ensure both sides are heated evenly.
5. Remove the tape and remove the cable from the rod.
6. Apply more heat to ensure all the tube has shrunk.
7. Strip the ends of the cable.
8. Check all the wires for continuity and shorts
   • For continuity, check every wire color against the same color on the other end. It should beep on each wire.
   • For shorts, check every wire color against the other two colors on the other end. It should not beep.
9. Take the servo extension and cut it in the middle.
10. Solder each halve of the servo extension cable to the ends of your coiled cable. The colors you use do not matter, as long as you are consistent on both sides. We soldered red to red, black to black, and white to yellow. The green wire, ground, and shield were not needed so we just cut them.
    • Before soldering the wires, insert a piece of the large shrinking tube and slide it out of the way. This will be used to cover all the wires after soldered. Also, insert about 1 inch of the smaller shrinking tube on each wire.
11. Slide the small diameter tubes to cover the solder and heat them. This will ensure there are not shorts between the cables.
12. It is a good idea to check the cable for continuity and shorts again, but this time at the plugs.
13. Slide the large diameter tubes to cover the soldered wires while keeping a little bit of overlap with the already shrunk tube, then apply heat.

It took us about 1 hour to complete this process with the help of our mentors. The most difficult part is inserting the cable in the heat shrinking tube since each piece is 4 feet long and the friction makes it hard to insert. The end result is really good! We have been using that cable for some time now with zero issues. Below are some pictures and videos of key steps of the process. Please do not look at the mess in the background!

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