2016 China Trip
FIRST Robotics Team 525, the Swartdogs, traveled to China again to continue supporting the China Robotics program. Eight team members and several mentors attended a workshop, assisted Chinese teams, and experienced Chinese culture.
On August 4th and 5th, the group traveled to Shanghai, China. After leaving Cedar Falls at 2:30 am, we endured a 14 hour flight to China.
On August 6th, we attended the opening of a workshop in Shanghai. The workshop included speakers, a game, and mentoring Chinese teams 9033 and 9039. We taught them how to apply safety measures, discussed how to make decisions when building the robot, and shared our technical expertise.
The next day, we advised the Chinese teams on what to do while we were gone. Then, we traveled to Huangshan City where we spent a couple of days seeing China and learning about the Chinese culture. Over the next few days, we visited Hongcun Village, an ancient Chinese town, and took a cable car to the top of the Yellow Mountains. Here, we enjoyed hiking and seeing an incredible sunset.
On August 10th, we went back to the workshop to help the two Chinese teams. Because this was the last day of the workshop, we spent the day doing last minute details to get ready for the competition.
The next day was the first day of the China Robotics Challenge. This day was filled with practice matches. We participated in two of them.
On August 12 and 13, we participated in qualification matches. The qualification matches went well, and we placed 16th overall. We were selected by the alliance captain team 5839 and joined by 5823 to form the 8th seed alliance. While neither of the Chinese teams that we worked with were chosen to join an alliance, they both did extremely well and built very nice, sturdy robots.
On August 14th, we participated in playoff matches. Before the playoff matches began, along with team 987, we were recognized for our continuous support and help towards the Chinese Robotics Challenge and FRC in China. They gave us a mini humanoid robot as a thank you gift. Then, the playoff matches began. Along with our alliance partners, we lost to the 1st seed alliance in the quarterfinals of our bracket. The 1st seed alliance did very well and went on to win. At the end of the competition, we received a 3D printer. Weistek, one of the sponsors of the event, gave 15 3D printers to teams via a random drawing.
On August 15, we traveled to Beijing, China. Over the next couple of days, we visited many popular tourist sites including the Temple of Heaven, the Great Wall of China, the Summer Palace, and the Beijing Olympic Park. On August 17, we arrived home.