The team dove into this game from day 1! Reefscape is a complex "pick-and-place" game requiring the robot to manipulate 4" diameter, 12" long PVC tubes ("Coral") and place them on "Reef" poles in the center of the field. The robot can score additional points if it can handle 16" rubber balls ("Algae") and score into a high or low goal. The game also includes a final climb challenge on a swinging cage which can be set either high or low. Our team decided to try to accomplish most tasks instead of focusing on just one or two robot goals, making a pretty complicated robot. 

Riptide was designed to accomplish most tasks in the Reefscape game. Riptide's rotating dual intake arm can pick up coral from the reef station on one end and algae from both the reef and the floor on the other, as well as place algae into the barge. Riptide is also equipped to climb on a deep cage using a modified "Everybot" climber. We wanted to incorporate a ground intake for coral as well and tried (very hard!) to make it work but given time and weight limit constraints, we stayed we stayed with reef station intake only.

Week 2, our first competition included some of the most accomplished teams in NC! Our auto routines were giving us some trouble (one almost killed a referee) but we were still able to be one of the higher scoring teams in teleop, and one of the few teams with a consistent deep climb, putting us in 4th place at the end of qualifiers. As an alliance captain we were able to make it to round 13 of the semifinals when some wiring was knocked out and disabled our elevator, causing us to be eliminated. We were nonetheless very excited about our team's and Riptide's performance. 

Our Pitt County event was another great success. Our fabulous programming team got our 2-coral auto routine working consistently, making it one of the best auto routines on the field. We finished qualifiers ranked in 4th place and were selected by the 2nd Alliance captains to join their team and were eliminated in the semi-finals. Our team was also awarded the Innovation in Control Award, recognizing Riptide's rotating arm, and we are very proud of our performance. 

Going into states, we knew we were going to have a difficult competition because our match schedule had been predicted to be one of the least lucky in the entire competition. Our robot's ability payed off, however, as our robot's consistent two coral autonomous routine and consistent L4 scoring was noticed by the other teams during alliance selection. As a result, we were selected as the first pick of Alliance 5, the first time in 4 years that we had been selected for playoffs at states. Additionally, we finally managed to give our robot automatic alignment after several matches of testing on the field.