Day 1: Arrival and Safety Check

We arrived at the competition and immediately got to work. We were able to pass the safety check on the first try, which is a lot better than last year. This was a great start to the competition and really set the tone for the rest of the week.

Setting up the boat

Day 2: Qualifying Rounds

On day 2, we worked on preparing the boat to qualify. We collected a lot of data and made some adjustments to the boat to improve its performance. We didn’t qualify for any tasks during the day, but we learned a lot and were able to make some great improvements to the boat.

Working on the boat

That night, we worked really hard to prepare for the next day. We made improvements to the computer vision system, the navigation system, and the boat’s mechanical systems.

Day 3: Qualifying Rounds

On day 3, we were able to qualify for task 1, the navigation channel.

That night, we went out to the hotel pool to do some testing and tuning of the boat. We worked on improving the task 1 code and the boat’s mechanical systems.

Day 4: Qualifying Rounds

On day 4, we were able to qualify for task 2, follow the path, and task 3, docking.

That night, we went out to the hotel pool to do some testing and tuning of the boat. We worked on improving the task 1 code.

Testing the boat in the hotel pool

Some of the RoboNation staff also came to the hotel to help us out, which was really nice of them. We were able to get some great advice and make some improvements to the boat.

Bill holding the famed roboboat phone

Day 5: Qualifying Rounds

On day 5, we were able to qualify for task 4, the speed challenge.

That night, we worked really hard to prepare for the finals. We made improvements to the computer vision system, the navigation system, and the boat’s mechanical systems.

Day 6: Finals Rounds 1 and 2

We were able to qualify for the finals in four out of eight tasks, so we started working on our finals strategy. We didn’t complete any tasks during the day, due to the boat oversteering, but we did learn a lot and were able to make some improvements to the boat for the next day. One of the most important things we figured out was that we needed to tune our PID to be less aggressive, so the boat wouldn’t oversteer.

Go Martin!

Day 7: Finals Rounds 3 and Awards Ceremony

On the final day, we were able to complete task 1 in the finals, the navigation channel. We ended up placing a very respectable 9th place out of 15 teams in the finals (check out the full results here).

Awards ceremony

Eating at awards ceremony

Banner won by the seals