Thursday 13th March 2025, this week we all focused on our upcoming outreach project.
Outreach
We decided for our outreach at our local primary school we would get the kids into small groups to copy code for a robot and then race against the other groups. So this week we were testing the activity with our school’s younger FTC teams, working on our plan and smoothing out any issues with the activity – as well as keeping an eye out for any hazards and things we may have forgotten. Additional to this, we designed the course for the racetrack that the children will drive on.
Wednesday 5th March 2025, this session we were all working hard, our Hardware team on developing our strategy and plans for adjustments from last week, our Finance team handling the finances and our Outreach team continued planning – it was a very productive week!
Additionally, this week we had the chance to look over our feedback form from judging which was a great starting point for a lot of our discussions and plans.
Hardware and Strategy
Our Hardware team were still refining our game plans and discussing what to improve about our robot for the upcoming Championships. One thing that we plan to do is making a linear lift arm, as well as changing the bucket motion to be more effective. Another thing we considered, but were unsure of the usefulness, was changing the size of the bucket. Furthermore, we found during Qualifiers that our robot kept breaking in many ways, which forced us to just have to ineffectively push samples – to ensure if this happens in London that we aren’t completely stranded we plan to add a board in front of the intake to scoop sample, this will hopefully not only make pushing samples easier but collecting them as well.
Outreach and Finance
For outreach, we finalised some dates, planning an April Fool’s themed bake sale on April 1st, and deciding to go for our Primary School visit on the 20th March (however we have not heard back from the school so this may change). For our bake sale we also came up with some ideas for what to do to make it themed.
In terms of finance, our Finance Lead, Charles, kindly counted up the money from our previous bake sale – this totalled to £221.71 – which we are tremendously proud of. Additionally, we were looking for further funding and considered making a bid for a fund that AstraZeneca offers.
Outside of Sessions
This week on the Friday, we checked the minibots that we’ll use for our Primary School visit and ensured they’d all work properly and Leonard very generously wrote the program for them.
Thursday 27th February 2025, the first session after our very successful qualifiers! This week was incredibly celebratory, with Alex bringing homemade cake in and us taking team photos for the school, but still productive with us working hard developing our strategy and upcoming outreach plans.
Hardware and Strategy
In terms of hardware and strategy, we took some notes during the competition for ideas of improvements, taking inspiration from the other teams and using what we learnt in our matches to develop our robot. We found at qualifiers that it was very effective to have one specimen scoring robot and one bucket scoring robot as it ensured you didn’t get in the way of your alliance partner and slow each other down. This meant during our session we considered options to adapt our robot to also handle specimens as well as develop our existing bucket mechanism to reach the high basket. Furthermore, we discussed changing our intake to allow it to extend forwards to be able to grab samples from a further distance.
Outreach and Fundraising
For Outreach, we began brainstorming bake sale ideas for this half-term, coming up with some themes and when we could do it – but still not deciding anything. Additionally, we continued making plans for our Primary School visit – brainstorming ideas for what activity to run, taking note of everyone who will be involved, and writing an email to the school finalising a date, however we have not heard back from them since.
Tuesday 25th February 2025, East 1 Qualifiers at Cambridge Science Centre! After all our preparation it was finally time to see our hard work pay off, and pay off it did. We were part of the Winning Alliance and won the Inspire Award! We couldn’t be more proud and everyone was super supportive; it was a fantastic day.
Travel and Arrival
Our school has 3 FTC teams: one comprised of Year 7s, another Year 8s and 9s, and us. We all met up at Cambridge Train Station at 7:20 – an early start for most of us – where we signed in with our teacher and the very kind staff that were accompanying us for the journey and day. Getting on and off the train wasn’t much of an affair; we only had to go one stop before getting off from there we walked to the centre. We were all in good-spirits as we went, all of us chatting and having fun.
Once we made it to the centre we unloaded our boxes and the robots and set up in our area. We hadn’t had much time to practice with the robot before the competition date as it was only finished a little bit before so we aimed to arrived a bit earlier to test driving, ensure both drivers were happy with everything, and that the robot was functioning as supposed.
Cipher: Our RobotTesting and PracticeTesting and Practice
Judging and Inspections
Soon enough, after the opening, Inspections and Judging began. We were called up for Field Inspection first, which held us up a bit as there was a small complication to resolve. Before that completed, we were called to Judging. Judging started a little rocky due to us being nervous and our presentation not wanting to load – but the judges were lovely, being perceptive and enthusiastic which allowed us to get into the flow of things and continue regardless of our half malfunctioning presentation and by the end of it we felt confident and quite sure of ourselves. Once we finished, we were immediately called off to Robot Inspection which was completed with ease. We checked the completion board and then saw that our Field Inspection wasn’t finished causing us to go back and fix the minor complication and then we were ready.
Qualification Matches
Every team played 5 matches.
Our first match was the very first match of the day; we were against both of our school’s other teams and it was a very tight match. We expected to lose: when the match ended the other alliance had far more points than us but, when the results came out, we’d won! And very narrowly as well, only beating them by one or two points.
Our second match was very surprising. It was the third qualification match, and after a tough game with excellent competitors and a great alliance partner it resulted in a tie: a result none of us, in all our time, had ever seen before. However, one of our teammates, Alessandro, brought up a point of question with a sample that was just over the tape, leading to a very narrow win for us.
Our third and fourth matches were both losses. They were the sixth and ninth matches of the day; both were graciously lost and tough matches all round. After losing the third match, we wanted to win the fourth to secure ourselves for alliance selection but, unluckily, on our fourth match our robot malfunctioned – due to a software error – causing the arm to flip the wrong way, and rendering it useless; our drivers did their absolute best to adapt by pushing samples into the zone but it unfortunately cost us the match.
However, we kept our spirits high, and on our fifth and final match, which was also the final qualification match overall, we did spectacularly. We were allianced with an amazing team, The Chiswick Cyborgs, and the match went amazing. Both of us starting strong and staying efficient – by the end we’d beaten the other alliance well and had 99 points overall – the event high score.
Our final match – Event High Score.
After all the qualification matches were over, the rankings were put up and we were placed 4th!
Alliance Selection and Final Matches
Then it was Alliance Selection; Alex went up as our team representative and it was a quick affair. The 1st place team was the first Alliance Captain and – as usual – took the 2nd place team as their Alliance Partner, and the the 3rd place team, Chiswick Cyborgs 2.0, was the second Alliance Captain and took us their Alliance Partner! We had already planned how we were going to respond in Alliance Selection so there wasn’t much need to discuss on the spot and we were thrilled to be going into the final matches.
The final matches were a best of three, and it was very close…
The first match was tense; during alliance selection our teammate, Nathan, has messaged us to put the battery on charge and put a new one in but unfortunately we missed the message and during the match our battery ran out of charge, leaving us stranded and useless. However, thanks to our Alliance Captain it was still a relatively close match. They did their best and valiantly closed the gap, but as they were alone, it wasn’t enough and the other alliance won.
We were ready for the next match; with a fresh battery in place we were ready to go. It was still a tough match but went relatively smoothly and we won. This left the last match to be the decider. During our second match, however, on of the other alliance’s robots had had some issues meaning to resolve those we had a bit of a pause before the final match.
The last match was tense. With both alliances passionate and ready to go, it started smoothly. The autonomous period passed as planned but at the start of the driver controlled was where it started to fall apart, literally. The chain and sprocket driving our intake fell off and, with no other course of action, we resorted to pushing the samples into the net zone. Luckily, thanks to the Chiswick Cyborgs 2.0 being incredible with the specimens, we were still doing well and picking up points – which meant by the end the scores were tight. As the final points were decided, we were all on edge. But when the screen changed to show who’d won… It was us!!
Awards and Closing Ceremony
After that we were sent to pack up and next it was the awards ceremony. Hearing the gracious professionalism nominations were super sweet and fantastic to hear. Additionally, It was amazing seeing all the other teams getting awards – they all massively deserved them, especially our school’s youngest team winning the Judge’s Award, who we were all super proud of.
When it came to the Inspire Award and they announced we’d won it was so incredible and shocking. Going up to collect it was thrilling and we were just in such disbelief, it was a dream come true. Going to photos we were laughing and smiling so hard our faces hurt – we were simply delighted. And in our delight it took quite a bit to get ourselves organised for the photo which led to it taking a little longer to take – this also meant we were still by the photo area as they handed out the Winning Alliance Awards so we collected those after the closing ceremony.
Us being unready.Celebrating BTS
Final Notes
Qualifiers went amazingly and we couldn’t be happier with how it went – everyone was so kind and helpful, which made the day all the more enjoyable for everyone. The experience was so fantastic, being one of the best competitions our seasoned team members have been to and an incredible first time at a FTC competition for our newcomers. It was great to see all the teams – especially with so many new ones. We can’t wait to see everyone who’s qualified at Champs in June – and to see everyone who’s unfortunately not, again next year.
Friday 14th February 2025, as well as being Valentine’s Day, it was also the last day before Half-term, so it was very nice to be hosting our first bake sale of the term then! It was fantastic to see all of our planning pay off, the sale was very successful!
Similar to previous bake sales, we collaborated with our school’s younger FTC teams for the baking effort so there was plenty of delicious Valentine’s themed cakes, cookies and more! Everything looked fabulous decorated with hearts, pink and red icing and sprinkles! Team Cipher’s very own Shaked (our Project Manager) brought homemade meringues – which are becoming a robotics bake sale staple – shaped like hearts, which were simply scrumptious!
We served at break and lunchtime, setting up with the help of staff and extra preparation time by leaving classes a couple minutes early. We had so much to put out that some items were almost sold out by the time we’d even finished setting up. By the end of break we’d sold over half of what we had, which was so amazing! Our earnings were kindly kept safe by staff in the in-between period so that when we came back at lunch we hadn’t accidentally lost anything. Over lunch we sold the rest of the baked goods, having only a handful of items left – all of which sold incredibly, just made in very large batches causing leftovers.
Seeing everyone work together to help raise money for our teams was massively inspiring. Overall the sale was a huge success – we had some insightful conversations with teachers about robotics, sold almost everything and made far more than we anticipated! This sale has meant we’re over 2/3 of the way to our fundraising goal for the whole Spring term, and pushed us over halfway to our £1000 goal for the entire season!
Wednesday 12th February 2025, with Half-Term week blocking us between now and Qualifiers we were tense to get everything done as once we got back we only had a day to be ready. Our robot was half-unfinished and our Engineering Portfolio not nearly done yet, we were all feeling the pressure. We stayed behind at school longer than usual to ensure we could get as much work done as possible.
This week – instead of separating into our usual sub-teams we simply split into two groups: one working on the robot, another on the engineering portfolio and judging presentation.
The Robot
Our robot was still completely in pieces and we were tight for time in terms of finishing everything. In the session we assembled and tested our intake which was finally working, we switched out the rubber tubing for a mix of rubber tubing and cable ties so that it could efficiently take in the samples. We also staggered the alignment of the cable ties and tubes for that they could be more efficient. We tested the programming and we found it worked but for some reason would tilt the samples the wrong way occasionally which might prove a hindrance if occurs in a game situation but we chose not to focus on fixing it at the moment. We also adjusted the height of our back arm as it slightly exceeded the limit.
Our intake at the end of the sessionOur robot at the end of the session
Engineering Portfolio and Presentation
For our engineering notebook we had 3 of us cycle between the pages so we could finish the pages that were our personal speciality so it was more efficient for us to finish – we didn’t complete it by the end of the session but it was only missing a couple refining details by the end.
The presentation for judging was similar – with people on the powerpoint adding and formatting the slides to present everything we could as well as possible. To save time we copied some information off of our engineering portfolio and blog to fill the space (however during the competition we plan to present without looking at the slides – just summarising them).
The first slide of our presentation for judging.
By the end of the session, both were mostly done with only a few details to be refined.
Outside of Sessions & Half-Term
Outside of our sessions – and over half-term – we were finalising everything and we made lots of progress, specifically to the robot. Our main focus for the robot was the intake and had been for several weeks – we kept re-iterating the roller design and the mechanisms but we finally assembled it to the main robot and tested the software over half-term – ensuring it all did as planned. Furthermore, we re-printed our bucket to be larger so the samples fit and didn’t risk missing and/or bouncing out. We also printed a spare in case it broke during the game.
We also submitted our engineering portfolio – after having added all the final touches. It was the day preceding the deadline and our teacher emailed letting us know he’ll check over and submit it for us, which was a huge relief.
It’s been massively stressful but we can’t wait to see how all our hard work pays off at Qualifiers!
Thursday 6th February 2025, this week we were relatively productive working hard to tie any loose ends as Qualifiers are rapidly approaching. We also spend more time outside of our session this week working on the robot and testing.
(And, of course, we split off into our usual sub-teams to ensure we all got work done and weren’t disturbing each other.)
Hardware and Assembly
In terms of hardware and assembly, it was a relatively normal week – we attached more of our pre-made parts and tested how they functioned. We are still prototyping our intake – so more discussion was centred around that.
Some photos:
Outreach and Fundraising
Our Valentine’s Bake Sale is approaching and we had some final touches to add in order to finalise the whole plan. As our school has 3 FTC teams, we all work together for the baking effort and we only see the other 2 teams every fortnight so we had to communicate everything this week. We made a document entailing who was baking, quantities and allergens. During the session we also considered who would be running the stall on the day and who would go round the school the day before, reminding all the forms of the sale – something we do every bake sale. However we didn’t finalise a decision on this as both would be done by members of our teams so didn’t need to be sorted out there and then and could be communicated at a later date.
Outside of Sessions
This time outside of our session we were very productive as well, I’m even tempted to say more-so than within our session. Our drivers finally got time to test out the robot – our Player 2’s first time driving the robot in Team Cipher. Both beginning to familiarise themselves with the controls until they become second nature.
Furthermore we began properly filling in our Engineering Portfolio, thanks to our Data Officer. We also decided to make it look a little nicer than previous years – opting to add banners on each page to add some flair to it. The rest of us also took time out of our lessons to work on this as well as starting our presentation for the interview at Qualifiers.
In terms of Outreach, we got in contact with the three main primary schools, in our local area, for an opportunity to work with their students to hopefully inspire them with what we do. And on the 7th of February, one of them got back to us, agreeing to let us run sessions for their Year 5s and 6s. They said they’d like us to do four sessions of 30-60 mins, which we were very pleased with. And after the initial excitement of the acceptance of our request ceded, we immediately got to brainstorming what we’d do in those sessions. We’ve considered ideas such as doing demonstrations with our robot and/or getting them to design robots to solve simple problems, as well as many other options. Currently we haven’t decided on a final idea of what to do in the sessions but we’re very excited at this opportunity and plan to run them not long after Qualifiers.
Wednesday 29th January 2025, this week’s session was less productive than previous weeks, taking on a calmer, chiller atmosphere as there were fewer of us in attendance this week. But that’s not to say we weren’t productive at all! We made progress for sure, just a tad slower.
(While, like usual we split off into our sub-teams, we did end up regrouping by the end of it as there wasn’t much progress to be made.)
Hardware and Assembly
In terms of assembly – most of the parts being prepared and tested out of session but being attached in the session. We also tested the functionality of certain parts – ensuring their quality and reliability. We also found that, by accidentally crashing the robot into a chair, that the position of the power switch left it vulnerable to being pressed and turned off unintentionally – which would be very bad in a game situation. We considered adding a cover but felt it was against the game rules so decided to either move it to face upwards or add extensions so it’s still exposed but not hit-able. We’ll decide on our course of action next session.
Outreach and Fundraising
Since this week our school’s younger team wasn’t around to discuss with there wasn’t much we could do in terms of our Valentine’s Day Bake Sale – and we haven’t got much to sort out in regards to it anyway. We did some brainstorming for our next sale, thinking about other outreach activities we should do as well (separate from our fundraising) but most of them didn’t felt very feasible.
Outside of Sessions
Our Valentine’s Day Bake Sale poster was put up onto our school’s online newsletter so that people know of it’s happening. Nathan also printed our rollers for the intake this week, so massive thank you to Nathan, it looks fantastic!
Thursday 23rd January 2025, this week’s session was very productive, and we all felt very refreshed and well into our regular flow of working – but being a good chunk into the term meant we were all feeling the pressure from the approaching regionals competition.
(And of course, we split off into our usual sub-teams for the session)
Hardware and Assembly
This was our most productive week in terms of hardware and assembly so far; with many people, who traditionally weren’t seen on the hardware side of operations, chipping in to help out. We started by attaching the wood panels to the outer parts of the wheel – unfortunately due to some miscommunication (or lack thereof) they were painted upside down and we decided it wasn’t worth the trouble to re-paint, we would rather progress and attach them regardless, if we move onto nationals we’ll consider re-painting them. However, despite how unfortunate it was, it definitely taught us an important lesson on communication! Attaching them was a quick and easy process, at one point three of us were working on individual wheels which led to some uncomfortable positions trying to screw the screws in.
The wheels and upside down wood panels
We found that the wheels were splaying out, our original plan to fix this was to attach an aluminum bar to keep it from doing so but after further consideration we felt it would be easier to simply attach a plate onto the end – but were unsure if the laser cutter would be able to cut to that size.
Stopping splaying of the wheels – attach a plate
At the same time of our wheel parts attaching, we had people working on additional parts to the robot, for example the expansion hub. On top of that, this week we were prototyping an intake. Leonard, our main person for anything robot related, printed a roller that had holes to stick surgical tubing through. During and after hot gluing all the tubes in, we started to realise the tubes would likely be too flimsy to move the samples, regardless of how fast we spun it, we also noticed other problems with the intake as well. After this, we thought of changes to make to the intake, the main being to use cable ties instead of the tubing, to make it more spacious, and to use gears instead of a chain.
Outreach and Fundraising
This week we really focused in on refining the details of our upcoming Valentine’s Day bake sale. Since we only see the younger team every fortnight we wanted to work ahead of schedule and polish out the plan early so we can avoid any mishaps in the future. Together – discussing with the individuals on our teams – we agreed on who would bake, what they’ll bake and how much, we also finalised who would sell on the day. Additionally, and we sent our graphic designer (me, Emma) home with a task to create a poster for the bake sale.
Outside of Sessions
This week we also did plenty outside of the session as well (partially why this post is coming out so late)! As mentioned earlier, I was sent home with homework to design a bake sale poster, which I designed and then made a second variation of after being given advice and feedback from Shaked (thank youu, Shaked!!)
The first design.The variation – changed the bottom heart to a silhouette of our logo.
Furthermore, Leonard finalised the control layout – communicating with our drive team to ensure they’re optimal, and also did lots of 3D printing and CAD design e.g. the bucket for the samples and more. (We would be lost without you Leonard!! Massive thank you, and you have all of our respect!)
We welcomed the new year with a massive surge in productivity and progress. For our first two sessions we split off, as usual, into sub-teams to ensure we were as efficient as possible, as well as having fun!
Hardware and Assembly
First sessions back and we were very keen to make progress on the robot itself. We concentrated our efforts on assembling the chassis and ensuring it was constructed correctly. Additional to that, Isaiah very kindly helped and tapped the extrusion so that we could fit screws into it – metal tapping is something he’d learnt on the day by our teacher, so massive kudos to him, the rest of us are incredibly thankful! This year we chose to use the aluminium extrusion in between the wood panels surrounding the wheels for greater stability, we also wanted to add more flair to the robot in terms of design and colour so the outer wood panels were sent home with me (Emma) to paint.
Outreach and Fundraising
We decided to open an Instagram account (@teamcipher425) for this season due to the benefits social media brings for being connected to the rest of the community, we spent some time setting it up in our session on the 9th and immediately we saw how great it was. Not long after setting up the account, we received a message request from Robopeda (RO 169 – 19242) for collaboration, which definitely solidified us in our decision to create an Instagram as it’s clearly the best way to connect with other teams. We spent lots of our second session on the 15th drafting and sending a reply to their request and planning for their Global Connections Project meeting.
Furthermore, for the new term we started to plan for our fundraising, we are ahead on our goal for the year so far but we still have to plan and prepare for more. On our first session back we contacted our teacher asking about fundraising opportunities for this term, we had a couple of ideas revolving Valentine’s Day such as selling roses as a secret gift (which is a fundraiser that our school typically has around this time) and standard bake sale ideas with Valentine’s Day twists. We were informed that we could host a standard bake sale but denied for our other ideas, but it didn’t particularly matter as we still had our opportunity to raise money for the team. On our second session back we started to flesh out the plans for the bake sale, deciding to host it on the 14th of February itself as it lands on a Friday.
Outside of Sessions
Outside of our session plenty of progress was made as well, for example, in terms of software, Leonard, our lead programmer, wrote the Front Arm and Intake subsystems. As mentioned earlier, the wood panels were painted, however there was some miscommunication leading to… less than ideal outcomes, which we’ll unpack in our next session update. Also mentioned earlier is the Robopeda Global Communications Project meeting, which was attended by Alex and Leonard on the 19th – it was an overall fantastic meeting and we’re incredibly grateful to Robopeda for reaching out and giving us this opportunity.
