After a successful weekend of traveling all across Switzerland with groups going to Zurich, Luzern, Grindelwald, and even Milan, the visiting American students were up early and ready to get back to making progress on their robots. This blog is going to be a quick update on progress on each team.
Team Confederation HelvetiCar (Engelstad, Emrick, Van Buren, Zuleger, Stone): CH got to class today and had to deal with the tragedy of a failed three-hour long 3D print. The group kept their spirits high and methodically worked their way through the software to the point when the new print finished, they were all set to go with testing. This group is sure to be right up there with the competition due to their strong team connection and persistence.
Team Saftiger Döner (Smith, Nhan, Gross, Firth): Saftiger Döner started the day already looking past the early prototype testing into higher level issues in later, more complex, logic-oriented tracks while waiting for a redesigned testing platform to finish production. SD seems to be hiding their progress well and lulling the opposition into a false sense of security. They will surely be a major player later on when the challenge heats up.
Team Zee Haw (Ebben, Gruenhagen, Hillstrom, Romfoe, Willis): Zee Haw takes the crown for the first major design overhaul. A length reduction of more than 100 percent (200mm to 90mm) made their new design lighter and more maneuverable. They also have very clever hardware to overcome later challenges. The future is bright in the wild west.
Team Swiss Cows (Brown, Neff, Meyers, Jeong, Chan): The Swiss cows were the second team to get a full lap around the circuit. After troubles with inside wheel rotation going to zero, they made a quick tweak to the code and had far smoother results. The Swiss Cows are a highly competitive group and are a certain bet to be in a spot for the podium.
Team Sweet Child O’ Line (Hamlen, Truong, Saravanan, Keranen): SCOL was the first group to have a car make the corner and go all the way around the track and is without a doubt a strong contender for the lead at the moment. Their car (Rolph) is growing in intelligence quickly and will surely conquer every challenge. SCOL’s time management, dedication, and creativity is unmatched and certainly is not biased at all due to the author’s involvement.
That’s all for the team update! Final competition in about a week and a half—it’ll be exciting to see the progress of all of the teams from this point onwards.
Thanks for taking the time to keep updated!
-- David K.
