Overview
SR 2014 is going to take place in April 2014 in Southampton University. It is a compertition run by the uni for 16-18 year olds, although these ages are *slightly* subjective. Every team is assigned a Southamton student or 'Blue Shirt', who helps them out; last year, HSO's Blue Shirt was the ever brilliant Rich.
The Competition
SR 2014 is called 'Slots' and the objective is to score the maximum amount of points possible in a 3 minuite round. 1 point is awarded for each of the following: Placing a token on a slot, Placing a token in a zone, Moving and Fliping a box onto its correct side. Bonus points are awarded for: Occupying two or more adjacent slots on the same side of the zone wall. The bonus is equal to the number of adjacent slots. There are 4 teams in a round and the winner of each round will be awarded 4 points towards the League, Second place will gain a team 3 points and so on. The arena is shown below:
THE LEAGUE / KNOCKOUT SYSTEM
The SR competition is split over two days. At first the teams will play a round robin of league matches. The teams with the most points at the end of the league competition will then go through to the knockout stages. Robots in the knockout stages will compete against each other with the winner and runner up moving into the next round. The winner at the end of the knockout stages is declared overall winner.
TEAMS 2014
There are over 50 teams entering Student Robotics 2014, hailing from Englang, Gurnsey, France and Germany. Teams who are curently registered on the SR website are:
Team Static Rage: We are a group of electronics and computing students. We are all share a common interest in robots, computing and electronics which drew us to putting together a team for the Student Robotics competition. Our team consists of John R, Tom C, Tom G, Kenan P and Martin M. John is the project manager and one of two programmers. Kenan is the hardware and graphic designer. Martin helps with hardware. Tom G is our CAD designer. Tom C is the second of two programmers.
Team Skynet: A team of eight innovative, artistic designers who are developing a world-class robot. Our robot the T2000, is going to bring judgement day early.
Team BVP: Barton Peveril's dashing good looking team for 2013 has arrived for a second year! Check out more about the team on the our fresh new website, and read our monthly newsletter! Find all our contact on our website and best of luck to all the other teams out there!
Team Brocket: The fine species of Team Brocket are the pinnacle of robotic excellence at Brockenhurst College (also the ONLY robotic excellence). We are a rag tag collection of programmers, engineers, scientists and mathematicians (with an artist for good measure). Visit our blog!
The A Team: St Brendans brainiest attempt to take over the world in a man made machine mechanistics machination melee!
Someone Else's Swag Lab: The Bishop Wordsworth's team this year falls under the title "Someone Else's Swag Lab" after our original 'group leader' abandoned the group. Formed of members from BWS and our close neighbours South Wilts (who incidentally have their own team with some members from BWS). A full bio will come once it has been finalised with the team...
Team Ninja Bot: We came 2nd last year for one reason only. Our robot had... a cape.
Team Collyer's: The Robot now has a stable surface thanks to our team of builders, and thanks to out programming team we also have some very efficient code for marker detection and orientation! Well Done to all!
Cranbrook School: ThunderBots: We are Cranbrook School’s Team, otherwise known as thunderbots, we consist of two teams(A&B), not much to stay really... check out our social media links to keep informed on our progress.
CRB2: The 'second' CRB team. In short, an internal competition has erupted to select the robot we take with us to the finals....
Team Mounier:
Team GRD: This is the second entry from Gordano School, but the first for our team. We have 7 year 12s, Rob, Laurence, Tom, Chris, Stephen, Robyn and Alysha, guided by our school's DT technician.
Gresham's Robotics:
Systemetric: Hills Road Sixth Form College robotics team "Systemetric" has been running since 2001, when an American exchange student got us involved with the U.S. based FIRST robotics challenge (FRC). We competed in this competition for 12 years until the costs of travelling to New York became too extreme, the $5000 annual entry fee was also a bit off-putting. The FIRST robots were big, heavy and although each year's challenges for the competition were quite interesting the robots themselves were remote controlled and needed a human driver. The Student Robotics competition, being fully autonomous has got us much more interested and we look forward to each new competition. We currently have a team of over 30, busy working on our "Steampunk" inspired robot.
HSO: Student Robotics 2014 is Headington Girls' School's (yes we are all girls :P) Second Student Robotics competition. We hail from Oxfordshire and are a team of 11 or so. Last year we won the 'Best Rookies' and 'First Move' awards, with HSO2 placing 2nd in the league and 5th overall. Please drop by our website for a moment ^_^ HSO Xx Website: http://hsorobotics.weebly.com/ Tumblr: http://hsosr.tumblr.com/
Hazelwick:
Team ICE: We're a team from Iceni Academy in Methwold. This is our first year taking part. We have a team of eight people. None of us have ever built a robot before, but we thought it would be fun to have a go. The majority of our team comes from the year 12 and 13 A level Physics classes.
The Last of the Mahicans: The best robot team from Abingdon is back this year with a much better robot!
Tyrannous Techies:
Team KES: We are a collection of Physics/Computing/DT/Further Maths students from King Edward VI School in Southampton. We are all in Lower Sixth (Year 12) at the moment, and share an interest in sciences. Read this now: WE WILL BEAT YOU!!
Team KHS:
Team LFG:
Hasan Industries: We are a team of students from Lawrence Sheriff School, Rugby, and collectively we all have an interest in programming or Electronics. Our robot is being made as an extracurricular activity and we are all very interested in seeing it succeed. Some probably more interested than others, while some think it's funny to write excessive amount in the team description when they COULD be contributing to the team, obviously this is all heavily steeped in irony. When I wrote this it was 16:21 03/03/2014 (hello future me), basically it's the closest thing to a time machine I can do until I invent the T.A.R.D.I.S. Though despite whatever I just happened to write on the spur of the moment I think we are all interested, and while some (one) of us may be exacerbating the entire rest of the team (not really) it shows good spirit that they haven't decided to remove them (me) from the team. Maybe it's also the fact I can code and contribute etc etc etc. The robot's name is Andrew. It likes the music of Rush; long walks in the park, until it needs to recharge :3; lifting (bro it DOES lift); also it (obviously not imposing personal values on an semi-animate object) wants to try its best at beating the other teams, because they are inferior to it. lol jk (With further review apparantly the team think that this isn't the best way to try to advertising our team; something about 'unfunny', 'stupid', 'forced' or other negatives which it isn't appropriate to reiterate. I DON'T CARE THOUGH, THEY CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO THEY AREN'T MY REAL DAD)
MAI Senior: Team MAI is back - bigger than ever! ... one guy more at least, we're this year's senior team of Gymnasium Markt Indersdorf in Bavaria, Germany. We ruled the competition last year in a "jaw-dropping finale" and plan on doing the same again this year. make sure to check out our youtube channel for (more or less) regular updates!
No English Available:
Epsilon Rho Rho:
MFG Robotics:
Wayne Robotics: Our team came into existence after the somewhat catastrophic failiure of the team to produce anything even vaguely resembling a robot last year. The team had several different "leaders", all pulling in different directions, until finally it all gave way and collapsed. But this was not the end. A year later, a shadowy figure emerged from the depths of the science labs, and claimed the robotics team for his own. A figure from Pate's legend, this man possessed skills no man before had possessed - he unified the team, pulled them together, and made them great again (This man also happens to be responsible for writing the Team description). He was not the hero they deserved - but he was the hero they needed. Together, this Dark Knight and his team built the Automated Lifting, Flipping and Rotating Electronic Device (A.L.F.R.E.D) to bring peace, wisdom and occasional British cynicism to the competition. You can fight Batman, but nobody - *nobody* - messes with Alfred J Pennyworth.
The Astromechs: The now huge Peter Symonds College team, due to SR being over subscribed and so not allowing us our usual two teams, oh well least it makes our hit by a bus factor higher (anyone new to SR might not get that, basically in the past the blue shirts have gone on about how many people could get hit by a bus before your team collapses and can do nothing) The team this year is styled around everyones favourite droid R2-D2 and by extension Star Wars. So watch out for
cloaks, lightsabers, holograms, blasters and of course cantina band
Purple Waffle:
RED: The Holy Glorious People's Republic of RED. With our new team of engineers and one programmer our new aim is to hopefully finish not last.
Colossal Denominators: We will win/find out we are overconfident. Also, our team name is a portmanteau of two previous national cipher challenge team names, and is therefore likely to change when we 'ave a better idea. Anyway, I'm assuming I can change this later when someone else decides writing that I'll change this later is dumb, so watch this space.
The Three Musketeers: We are three engineers from Southampton City College. We are aiming to make our robot as lightweight and powerful as possible, to achive this we have managed to generate four wheeled drive system using two motors. A feat of devlopment that took alot of work to develop, we have moved the center of gravity of our robot to the front giving us better traction.
Saafend Rabo'iks: 420 (mattfayislove)
Team GB (Geoffry Bourne): A mainly boys team in a girls grammar school team but this year WE HAVE 1 GIRL! SHE'S AWESOME. WE ALL LOVE HER. SHE'S THE BEST. EVER. Plans are to re-incrnate our shelf from last year. Rise Geoff Mk 5 but without actually making him look like a shelf. Coming from Salisbury, we are one of the 2 teams from this small city in suburban Wiltsire out in the heart of the Plain. Our main rivals are Team BWS, the local all boys grammar school. Our team currently consists of mainly programmers with very limited building experience, and one person with little programming experience but moderated DT / building experience.
Team TBG:
Team RT: Team Richard Taunton is the team to beat, with highly skilled coders, great designers and an extremely creative marketing team. We have already created a video, a Twitter account, started setting up several charity fundraisers and almost perfected the coding, so if you're not not scared, you should be, because we are ready. Are you?
Team TWG:
Team Static Rage: We are a group of electronics and computing students. We are all share a common interest in robots, computing and electronics which drew us to putting together a team for the Student Robotics competition. Our team consists of John R, Tom C, Tom G, Kenan P and Martin M. John is the project manager and one of two programmers. Kenan is the hardware and graphic designer. Martin helps with hardware. Tom G is our CAD designer. Tom C is the second of two programmers.
Team Skynet: A team of eight innovative, artistic designers who are developing a world-class robot. Our robot the T2000, is going to bring judgement day early.
Team BVP: Barton Peveril's dashing good looking team for 2013 has arrived for a second year! Check out more about the team on the our fresh new website, and read our monthly newsletter! Find all our contact on our website and best of luck to all the other teams out there!
Team Brocket: The fine species of Team Brocket are the pinnacle of robotic excellence at Brockenhurst College (also the ONLY robotic excellence). We are a rag tag collection of programmers, engineers, scientists and mathematicians (with an artist for good measure). Visit our blog!
The A Team: St Brendans brainiest attempt to take over the world in a man made machine mechanistics machination melee!
Someone Else's Swag Lab: The Bishop Wordsworth's team this year falls under the title "Someone Else's Swag Lab" after our original 'group leader' abandoned the group. Formed of members from BWS and our close neighbours South Wilts (who incidentally have their own team with some members from BWS). A full bio will come once it has been finalised with the team...
Team Ninja Bot: We came 2nd last year for one reason only. Our robot had... a cape.
Team Collyer's: The Robot now has a stable surface thanks to our team of builders, and thanks to out programming team we also have some very efficient code for marker detection and orientation! Well Done to all!
Cranbrook School: ThunderBots: We are Cranbrook School’s Team, otherwise known as thunderbots, we consist of two teams(A&B), not much to stay really... check out our social media links to keep informed on our progress.
CRB2: The 'second' CRB team. In short, an internal competition has erupted to select the robot we take with us to the finals....
Team Mounier:
Team GRD: This is the second entry from Gordano School, but the first for our team. We have 7 year 12s, Rob, Laurence, Tom, Chris, Stephen, Robyn and Alysha, guided by our school's DT technician.
Gresham's Robotics:
Systemetric: Hills Road Sixth Form College robotics team "Systemetric" has been running since 2001, when an American exchange student got us involved with the U.S. based FIRST robotics challenge (FRC). We competed in this competition for 12 years until the costs of travelling to New York became too extreme, the $5000 annual entry fee was also a bit off-putting. The FIRST robots were big, heavy and although each year's challenges for the competition were quite interesting the robots themselves were remote controlled and needed a human driver. The Student Robotics competition, being fully autonomous has got us much more interested and we look forward to each new competition. We currently have a team of over 30, busy working on our "Steampunk" inspired robot.
HSO: Student Robotics 2014 is Headington Girls' School's (yes we are all girls :P) Second Student Robotics competition. We hail from Oxfordshire and are a team of 11 or so. Last year we won the 'Best Rookies' and 'First Move' awards, with HSO2 placing 2nd in the league and 5th overall. Please drop by our website for a moment ^_^ HSO Xx Website: http://hsorobotics.weebly.com/ Tumblr: http://hsosr.tumblr.com/
Hazelwick:
Team ICE: We're a team from Iceni Academy in Methwold. This is our first year taking part. We have a team of eight people. None of us have ever built a robot before, but we thought it would be fun to have a go. The majority of our team comes from the year 12 and 13 A level Physics classes.
The Last of the Mahicans: The best robot team from Abingdon is back this year with a much better robot!
Tyrannous Techies:
Team KES: We are a collection of Physics/Computing/DT/Further Maths students from King Edward VI School in Southampton. We are all in Lower Sixth (Year 12) at the moment, and share an interest in sciences. Read this now: WE WILL BEAT YOU!!
Team KHS:
Team LFG:
Hasan Industries: We are a team of students from Lawrence Sheriff School, Rugby, and collectively we all have an interest in programming or Electronics. Our robot is being made as an extracurricular activity and we are all very interested in seeing it succeed. Some probably more interested than others, while some think it's funny to write excessive amount in the team description when they COULD be contributing to the team, obviously this is all heavily steeped in irony. When I wrote this it was 16:21 03/03/2014 (hello future me), basically it's the closest thing to a time machine I can do until I invent the T.A.R.D.I.S. Though despite whatever I just happened to write on the spur of the moment I think we are all interested, and while some (one) of us may be exacerbating the entire rest of the team (not really) it shows good spirit that they haven't decided to remove them (me) from the team. Maybe it's also the fact I can code and contribute etc etc etc. The robot's name is Andrew. It likes the music of Rush; long walks in the park, until it needs to recharge :3; lifting (bro it DOES lift); also it (obviously not imposing personal values on an semi-animate object) wants to try its best at beating the other teams, because they are inferior to it. lol jk (With further review apparantly the team think that this isn't the best way to try to advertising our team; something about 'unfunny', 'stupid', 'forced' or other negatives which it isn't appropriate to reiterate. I DON'T CARE THOUGH, THEY CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO THEY AREN'T MY REAL DAD)
MAI Senior: Team MAI is back - bigger than ever! ... one guy more at least, we're this year's senior team of Gymnasium Markt Indersdorf in Bavaria, Germany. We ruled the competition last year in a "jaw-dropping finale" and plan on doing the same again this year. make sure to check out our youtube channel for (more or less) regular updates!
No English Available:
Epsilon Rho Rho:
MFG Robotics:
Wayne Robotics: Our team came into existence after the somewhat catastrophic failiure of the team to produce anything even vaguely resembling a robot last year. The team had several different "leaders", all pulling in different directions, until finally it all gave way and collapsed. But this was not the end. A year later, a shadowy figure emerged from the depths of the science labs, and claimed the robotics team for his own. A figure from Pate's legend, this man possessed skills no man before had possessed - he unified the team, pulled them together, and made them great again (This man also happens to be responsible for writing the Team description). He was not the hero they deserved - but he was the hero they needed. Together, this Dark Knight and his team built the Automated Lifting, Flipping and Rotating Electronic Device (A.L.F.R.E.D) to bring peace, wisdom and occasional British cynicism to the competition. You can fight Batman, but nobody - *nobody* - messes with Alfred J Pennyworth.
The Astromechs: The now huge Peter Symonds College team, due to SR being over subscribed and so not allowing us our usual two teams, oh well least it makes our hit by a bus factor higher (anyone new to SR might not get that, basically in the past the blue shirts have gone on about how many people could get hit by a bus before your team collapses and can do nothing) The team this year is styled around everyones favourite droid R2-D2 and by extension Star Wars. So watch out for
cloaks, lightsabers, holograms, blasters and of course cantina band
Purple Waffle:
RED: The Holy Glorious People's Republic of RED. With our new team of engineers and one programmer our new aim is to hopefully finish not last.
Colossal Denominators: We will win/find out we are overconfident. Also, our team name is a portmanteau of two previous national cipher challenge team names, and is therefore likely to change when we 'ave a better idea. Anyway, I'm assuming I can change this later when someone else decides writing that I'll change this later is dumb, so watch this space.
The Three Musketeers: We are three engineers from Southampton City College. We are aiming to make our robot as lightweight and powerful as possible, to achive this we have managed to generate four wheeled drive system using two motors. A feat of devlopment that took alot of work to develop, we have moved the center of gravity of our robot to the front giving us better traction.
Saafend Rabo'iks: 420 (mattfayislove)
Team GB (Geoffry Bourne): A mainly boys team in a girls grammar school team but this year WE HAVE 1 GIRL! SHE'S AWESOME. WE ALL LOVE HER. SHE'S THE BEST. EVER. Plans are to re-incrnate our shelf from last year. Rise Geoff Mk 5 but without actually making him look like a shelf. Coming from Salisbury, we are one of the 2 teams from this small city in suburban Wiltsire out in the heart of the Plain. Our main rivals are Team BWS, the local all boys grammar school. Our team currently consists of mainly programmers with very limited building experience, and one person with little programming experience but moderated DT / building experience.
Team TBG:
Team RT: Team Richard Taunton is the team to beat, with highly skilled coders, great designers and an extremely creative marketing team. We have already created a video, a Twitter account, started setting up several charity fundraisers and almost perfected the coding, so if you're not not scared, you should be, because we are ready. Are you?
Team TWG: