SMITHFIELD — On Sunday, March 24th, FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) Team 6004 f(x) Robotics competed at the Heritage High School District Competition. At the event, the team won the Autonomous Award, which honors the team with the most consistent and reliable robot during periods of the game not under the control of a human.
The team’s 2024 season robot, S.O.N.G.
f(x) Robotics received this award due to their unique solution to gaining as many points as possible during the first 15 seconds of the game, called the autonomous period, which is how long the robot is not under any human control. They created an almost “choose your own adventure” system to do this. Before each game, the drivers select the path they want the robot to take during the autonomous period to pick up as many scoring elements, called notes, as possible. To choose the most efficient path, they must work with other members of their alliance, a group of 3 total teams competing with each other, to ensure no conflicts. This can be done by adding wait commands, choosing a different order of grabbing notes, going in a different direction, and more. Overall, this gives f(x) a total of 90,000 possible autonomous paths to select from. These factors combined to make a unique and innovative autonomous performance for f(x) Robotics, one worthy of this prestigious award.
f(x) Robotics after competing at the FRC State Championship
On April 6th and 7th, f(x) Robotics competed at the FRC State Championship at ECU after successfully qualifying due to their performance at district-level competitions. To prepare for states, they built a brand new robot entitled Encore to address previous issues they had with S.O.N.G., like how wide their intake was for notes and how quickly they could shoot them.
The team’s 2nd 2024 season robot, Encore, being worked on at the competition.
Out of the 40 teams competing, they ranked 11th overall and became the 8th-ranking alliance captain, making it to the elimination rounds. This marks the end of the 2024 season for f(x) Robotics, making their 9th year as a team their most successful yet. f(x) Robotics will be working hard for the rest of the year to prepare for the 2025 FRC season in order to top themselves again for their 10th year.
An f(x) Robotics representative with the two other teams they selected to join their alliance.
Those who are interested in learning more about FRC Team 6004, f(x) Robotics, email them at frc6004@gmail.com or visit their website at frc6004.com.