On April 24th, 1999, the alliance of Team 1 The Juggernauts, Team 176 Aces High, and Team 48 Team E.L.I.T.E. won the 1999 FIRST Robotics competition in Orlando, FL. In only our second year of existence, Team 48 built a robot worthy enough to be part of a national championship team. The victory was a testament to the talent and skill possessed by the students, engineers, and teachers, and it proved that anything could be accomplished through hard work, communication, and teamwork. Our success in Orlando opened the door for even more student involvement in the program in future years and remains one of the reasons Delphi E.L.I.T.E. has grown to be so successful. Prior to the Nationals, the team competed in two regionals in 1999. First up was the Motorola Midwest Regional, held on February 25-27 in Chicago, IL. This regional is affectionately referred to by team veterans as "The Regional from Hell". Nothing much went right for the unfortunate souls who attended this competition, so we won't get into any details here. If anything, it was a good learning experience. The team attended one other regional that year - the Great Lakes Regional, held March 25-27 in Ypsilanti, MI. After some nifty upgrades and improvements, the team took Xtremachen2 to the Nationals in Florida, held on April 22-24. Whatever we did to the robot must have worked, because we finished the qualifying portion of the event in 25th place out of the 207 teams in attendance. We also won the Best Defensive Play Award. Our robot's performance was good enough to catch the eye of the Aces High team, who selected us as an alliance partner. The rest, they say, is history.
Four teams participated in each match, paired to create alliances of two teams each. An alliance worked together to try to win a match. Alliances won or lost as a single unit. Points and/or victories applied equally to both teams within an alliance. During a match, each alliance worked to score points by positioning "floppies", their robots, and the "puck" on the playing field. Each alliance competed using two team-built robots, four robot operators, two human players, and four coaches. The floppies were light weight, pillow-like objects with Velcro-loop material located in its center and around its perimeter. The puck was a short, octagonal platform that rolled freely on caster wheels. Only human players and robots could directly interact with the floppies. The robots competed within the bounds of the playing field, while the human players were located at stations just outside the playing field. Each match lasted two minutes. In order to win a match, an alliance simply had to score more points than the other alliance. At the end of each two-minute match, points were awarded to alliances as follows. Each alliance received one point for each of its floppies that was over the playing field, not in contact with the surface of the playing field, and less than eight feet above the surface of the playing field. Each alliance received three points for each of its floppies eight feet or higher over the surface of the playing field. Any robot on the puck multiplied its alliance's score by three. An alliance was awarded a score multiplier of two if the puck was positioned entirely within the opposing alliance's end of the field. All multipliers are cumulative. Thus, if an alliance had all ten floppies above eight feet, had both robots on the puck, and the puck was positioned entirely within the opposing alliance's end of the field, their score would be 30x3x3x2 or 540 points.
