That’s very interesting and cool design.
After a 3 week break we had Scrimmage #4 today. Once again hosted at Unitec Albany.
It was a smaller event with only 27 teams competing throughout the day. That being said, it is mock exam season here, which makes it difficult for many of the senior teams to work on their robots and compete. We still haven’t seen any obvious design convergence, maybe a few more catapults after Wingus and Dingus posted their video after the last scrimmage. No one has elevated yet, but there were certainly a few attempts.
Scores wise there were 54 qualification matches which only one robot went undefeated throughout. First seed was Wingus and Dingus (7682) who picked his brother, second seeded Wingus and Dingus E (7682E). Together they won the scrimmage, even after a technical problem in the first finals match forced 7682 off the field for the second game. 7682E used this time to show off its skill by 1 v 2ing the third seeded alliance of Glenfield College B (2918B) and Onehunga High School (2900A). The Wingus and Dingus alliance also achieved the top score of the day with 311 points in their first semi final match. This was made up of 7 Bonus Balls and 45 Normal Balls in their High Goal. Sadly this is an unofficial score since the event has not been uploaded to RobotEvents, but I’m sure scoring consistency can only increase from here and they’ll be posting scores similar and above in the future.
No skills matches were run.
The next update should be next weekend, we’ve been told that Auckland Mayor, Len Brown, is to make an appearance. The last time he visited a robotics event was Clean Sweep Nationals in 2010 when he was the Mayor of Manukau City. We’re hoping with his support (and publicity) we can spread VEX a little bit more around Auckland.
Thank you to Unitec for providing the venue and staff wanting to help promote STEM in New Zealand. The AURA volunteers. Onehunga High School for providing the Sausage Sizzle. And as always** Kiwibots** for providing the infrastructure for the event and organising all our scrimmages.
Any match videos coming? 
I don’t think I’m the only one that would like to see these matches played out.
Seeing as the events aren’t on RobotEvents, in case people want to see the results for the past 4 scrimmages in Auckland you can see them all here.
Not a perfect solution, but hopefully it helps a bit!
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS unofficial_formal_but_official_result_scrimmages …
Thanks Nathan.
I don’t know whether this has been asked:confused:, but can the Wingus and Dingus robot shoot from both at the starting tile and at the goal?
Today’s was a big one. 42 teams, skills and a DQ in the semi’s. It really was quite a day.
There is still a large variety of designs. Flywheels, Catapults, Launchers, even a boot kicking robot, which was certainly interesting. In terms of reliability Catapults are probably the best, followed by Launcher then Flywheel, but there were some highly accurate Flywheels as well. We also got our first elevation, even though it was only low, I’m hoping it will start to happen more now.
Due to a scheduling error there were only 53 qual matches, allowing each team to play 5 times. However, we did play best of 3 quarters and had 3 team alliances. Six teams were undefeated after quals, with Top seeded Lynfield College (2915A) picking 4th seed **Wingus & Dingus (7682) and St Cuths B (2950B). Second seed House of Science B (8757B) choose 7th seed House of Science (8757) and Macbots A (9098A). Fourth seed Wingus & Dingus E choose 6th seed Rangitoto College D (2901D) and Kiwitech A (7757). The Lynfield College Alliance went straight through to the finals with ease, however the House of Science and Wingus & Dingus E alliance’s met in the semi’s which gave us a couple of close matches. Wingus & Dingus E pulling through after a DQ against House of Science in the second match. Lynfield College, Wingus & Dingus and St Cuths **won the day. Congratulations to these teams.
Skills challenges were run, but didn’t beat previous listed scores from Scrimmage 3.
We had Auckland Mayor Len Brown visit, the last time he saw a VEX event was in 2010 at NZ Nationals. He was very gracious about the programme.
In an attempt to help grow IQ a free IQ kit was given away to one of the competing teams. Mayor Len Brown picked out Long Bay College (2906). Congratulations on your new IQ kit and we hope to start seeing some IQ teams spawn out of Long Bay.
I have a video to share of the red net at the beginning of one of the elimination matches. I don’t know which match since several were sent through and I just picked out the one which I thought look good. You can check that out here.
We also had a casualty on the ball front. We believe it was caused by an intake axle jammed against a stuck ball.
All scores from the event can be found on Nathan’s NZ DB.
Thank you to Unitec for once again hosting us. Your venue is perfect for us and we hope to continue using it in the future. Kiwibots for organising scrimmages and giving away the IQ kit. AURA and M.A.R.T.I. volunteers. And to all teams, teachers, mentors and parents who turned out throughout the day.
Another great event thanks to all the volunteers. I’d always wondered what circumstances might lead to a DQ without a team being let off with just a warning first. The match affecting determination by referees is crucial and we’re lucky to have experienced refs here in NZ. In match SF2-2 red was ahead by just 10 points and the illegal actions and duration they occurred for against 7682E were deemed to have eliminated scoring opportunity and thus match affecting.
Nathan - SF2-2 shows the score result for red alliance rather than a 0?
No it doesn’t 
Yeah I didn’t parse elimination DQs correctly (where a single one is the same as two DQs in a qual) before, so it was wrong. But fixed that now.
I have been trying to design a catapult similar to yours, and have tried the following, and all have failed, maybe you could point me into the right direction.
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I have 6 regular 393s running with a couple of elastic bands, the arm couldn’t sustain being pulled down long enough.
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I have 4 turbo 393s running with 2 elastic bands. Shows promise, but my angle is a bit off.
Here’s the question, how did you get it so your elastics didn’t burn out your motors? Should I proceed with 6 Motor Turbo, and see where that leads me? and how do you get your launcher to run so fast, mine keeps burning out.
Thanks in advance!
Did you have sensors on your catapult? Particularily a potentiometer?
Because when the catapult is holding down the elastics, it shouldn’t be running at full power. The code should be set so that when it is fully stretching the elastics the motors run at a smaller value than 127 as to of have minimal current being sent to the motors and thus hold the position for much longer.
What speed should it be run at to hold it the best?
your supposed to guess and test so that you get the lowest value that still fully holds down the elastics
Ok thanks.
Yes, I had the position holding code in, it’s just it still didn’t like the rubber bands.
I now have a 6 motor turbo, and I’m getting closer to the speed, just the launch angle and speed are a tad bit off.
*You just dont want it to coast, or it will fire…
Anywhere from 1-30 power should be effective. You just need to find out what works best for your motors and configuration.
You dont want to ‘push’ the catapult down, just hold it in place. 0 power allows it to coast.*
Scratch that, vexforum didn’t update.
6 motors seems a lot for a catapult. Are you just turning a shaft with a metal rod attached to it, or are you pulling the elastics. How many elastic bands are you using? Have you tried using less elastic bands?
I am turning a shaft, but have elastic assist.
I have 4 Rubber bands, and the catapult doesn’t want to stay down, and I’m not getting nice launch angles anymore
Yes, I lose speed and my launch angle gets worse.
You might want to try less rubber bands: we only have 1 #64 for our short range catapult. For our long range catapult we have latex tubing. This enables us to adjust the power of the catapult until it’s at what we need.
Also, make sure to use a scoop for the ball that enables the ball to move around freely in it or else you will lose at lot of energy trying to launch the ball.
Yeah it sounds a little like you are using two much elastic 
4 motors should be enough me thinks…