This year the Junior Bomb Squad is competing in the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) game called FIRST®Skystone. 

The 2019-2020 game, FIRST® Skystone, is played on a 12 foot by 12 foot playing field where two Alliances – one “Red” and one “Blue,” composed of two Teams each – compete in each Match. The object of the game is to attain a higher Score than the opposing Alliance by (1) positioning the foundation, (2) delivering and placing stones to create a skyscraper, (3) placing a capstone on the skyscraper, (4) repositioning the foundation and parking during the end game...(Read More)

	Build season starts Sept. 7, 2019
	Complete Gamecourt Assembled Sept. 13, 2019
	Finalize Drive Base and Lift Design by Early October, 2019
	Drive Base and Lift assembled and driving by mid October, 2019
	Final Manipulator Designs by Nov 1, 2019
	Final Manipulator assemblies installed and functional by Thanksgiving, 2019
	Teleop and Autonomous programming complete by December 5, 2019
	Arkansas Mountain Home FTC Qualifying Tournament  December 7 , 2019
	Arkansas Hot Springs FTC Qualifing Tournament  January 11 , 2020
	Arkansas Springdale FTC Qualifing Tournament  January 18 , 2020
	Arkansas State FTC Championship Tournament  February 15 , 2020
	FTC World Championships at Houston, Texas April 15 - 18, 2020

12/7/2019 - Mountain Home, AR FTC Qualifier

We competed in the Mountain Home Qualifying Tournament. At this event, we won the Rockwell Collins Innovate Award, the Control Award, and we were the Winning Alliance Captain. We advanced to state by being the winning alliance captain.

November

In the month of November the team worked hard to get as much completed with building to be ready for the upcoming competition. Once the drive train was completely built and the team had less to work on with the robot the teammates who were interested in driving got some practice to learn and work to get better. As this was happening the programing team started to work on autonomous and the rest of the drive controls. Once the team had got the elevator, arm, and grippers built and ready to be put onto the robot the programing team worked with some of the build team to wire the robot. Some problems that appeared when wiring were how when moving the arm the wires would get pinched and some of the wires don't reach the expansion hubs and the team had to get extensions for those wires. One of the mentors Matt had made a vinyl cutter and some of the team started to work on cutting and putting vinyl onto the robot. Some things the team decided on was a power button label so if anything went wrong during a match the referees would know where the power button was. As well as flames on the drive base to stimulate the robot driving fast enough to create flames.

October

In the month of October, the team started to discuss ways to pick up and place stones onto the foundation. As well as a way to elevate the stone up to the top of the skyscraper. Once the team decided to use an elevator to reach the top of the skyscraper, the team used CAD to design the elevator and start the building on it. As the build team worked on building the elevator the design team worked on designing the rest of the arm and grippers. This required more brainstorming on the teams part as well as testing on what works and fits with our robot. The program team also started to program to be able to drive the drive base later on.

September

In the month of September the team started meetings and got to know the new team members a bit better. Some of the things the team did to get to know each other were “My name is…” games and just asking questions from the mentors to the whole team. Once the season started on the seventh of September the team went over all the things that were legal and illegal in this years game. Once we got everyone up to speed on the rules and regulations of the games we started brainstorming for this years game. Our first brainstorming session was on the drive base and what would work best with this years game. Since the team voted and decided on using a H- Drive for their drive base, they started designing it in CAD to make sure everything would work and fit well together.

On the twenty-first of September the team gave back to the community by volunteering at the local Baxter Appreciation Day. On this day the team worked with inflatables, concessions, and childrens games.

9/21/2019 - Baxter Employee Appreciation Day

In these .