Last week and finishing up Saturday was the Pacific Northwest FIRST District Championship 2019 where 68 Pacific Northwest FIRST FRC Teams competed for invites to the World Finals in Houston to be held April 17-20th. I drove up to Tacoma Washington for the PNW Finals to see the team 1540 that I mentor compete and see the other 67 regional teams. Team 1540 Flaming Chickens designed their competition robot named “Phineas” using Autodesk Fusion 360. These events are always inspiring. We got our elevator broken by a hard hit in the semi final qualifications, but had a great time and also received an invite to compete in Houston at the World Finals. Now the team is packing up to ship the robot to Houston for next weeks world championship.
Check out their PNW alliance practice double climb that drew applause and hoots as 1540 and 6443 climbed onto the same platform for 12 x 2 ranking points!
https://youtu.be/-qQQA7vPL5g
The double climb in the match.
See a low res 360 video of the second to last competition of ours on Saturday in the alliance with 1540 3674 6443 vs 2930 4488 5468
https://youtu.be/yJezNNVqwp0
Autodesk had a booth there along with a lounge area complete with Synthesis arcade units, lots of giveaways like the much loved Autodesk bandanas, and held design competitions. Thanks to Autodesk employee volunteers Andy Sears and Pam Kilpatrick and several others for making this so much fun for everyone!
In past years we have had clothes made by students from the bandanas brought by to our booth, check out this dress made with the bandanas this year! Congrats Team 997 Spartan Robotics!
On Friday a CAD competition was held for prizes on the best lunar rover and then Saturday a design competition for the SpaceX Dragon capsule. Students chose between Autodesk Fusion 360 and Autodesk Inventor to design their entry.
Chris Mitchell provided me with photos from the rover competition.
Here is the winning Dragon capsule in Fusion 360.
Thanks to all the teams, parents, mentors, coaches, teachers, volunteers, sponsors, and everyone that makes thee FIRST events so amazing!
Shaan
