Everything was new for us in 1998. Following in the footsteps of two other Delphi divisions, Delphi Packard decided to form its own FIRST robotics team. Delphi Packard partnered with Warren G. Harding High School and the Trumbull County J.V.S. to form a new team - Team E.L.I.T.E. - an acronym for Encourage Learning In Technology and Engineering. After a well-organized and aggressive recruiting campaign, more than 24 students, 28 engineers, and 14 teachers signed on to be a part of our inaugural season. The engineering team came up with the name "Xtremachen" (pronounced extreme machine) for the robot. This name has remained with the robots throughout the team's existence. The original Xtremachen was fashioned out of steel and was motivated by two drill motors directly driving the rear wheels with casters in the front. It also featured a scissor-lift assembly for lifting captured balls and wedging them between the bars of the the scoring goals. A roller wrapped in surgical tubing sucked balls into the "wedge" and then proceeded to compact them before pushing them out the other end when located in a scoring location. Xtremachen could hold two balls at a time. Team E.L.I.T.E. competed in one regional event in 1998 - the Great Lakes Regional in Ypsilanti, MI, held on March 19-21. After that, it was on to the National Robotics Competition at Walt Disney World in Orlando, which took place April 2-4. In our first season, we did very well at Nationals, seeding 36th out of 166 teams in attendance.
For the 1998 FIRST Competition, teams had to design and build robots to collect, transport and lift balls. In addition to the robot, each team was allowed to use a human player to interact with the balls. The robots competed within a hexagon-shaped playing field with an 8 foot tall, hexagon-shaped central goal, with three rail goals extending outward from the center goal. The players were located at stations just outside the playing field. Each team had 9 balls which could be placed on the rail goals or in the central goal to score points. The balls were color coded to identify team ownership. Points were awarded to teams at the conclusion of each two minute match according to the number of balls and their positions. Each ball placed on a rail goal was a worth a different number of points depending on which section it was placed on. Three points were awarded for the outer third of the goal (highest elevation), two points for the middle and one point for the inner (lowest elevation). The balls placed into the central goal did not count as points themselves but rather acted as multipliers for the total points accumulated on the rails. Each ball of your color placed in the central goal doubled your total points shown on the rails.
