The 2023-2024 First Robotics Competition season ended last week as the world championship concluded on the 20th. The season was definitely one to remember, following an art theme. 

Every year teams are given a challenge on the first Saturday of January. They are then given 6-8 weeks to design, manufacture, and program a robot to compete in First sponsored competitions. Following these 6-8 weeks, teams then compete in alliances made up of 3 teams to compete against the other teams at the competition and, if a team does well enough, they can then qualify for the world championship in Houston, Texas. 

This year, the challenge was centered around music, with the game being called CRESCENDO. The game centered around a ring-shaped game piece called a “Note”. Notes were placed around the playing field and could also be acquired from a feeder station. The Notes could then be scored in either the Speaker (a hole in the wall of each side of the field, or the Amp (a box on either side of the field). 

As always, this year’s game started with a 15-second autonomous period in which robots could run pre-programmed code to score as many game pieces as possible. The game then went into a tele-operated period in which two drivers could control the robots to score even more points. During the last 30 seconds of the game, the teams would then have the opportunity to climb on top of a chain and get bonus points for doing so. Though it sounds quite complicated, the matches are actually pretty fun to watch. 

This year’s winners of the world championship were teams 1690, 4522, and 321, winning the last match of the tournament by 3 points