1997

Archive tag	1997
Game Information
Game name	Toroid Terror
Number of official events	4
Chairman's Award winner	47
Winner	71
Finalist	47
← 1996 1998 →

The 1997 FIRST Robotics Competition season formally began on Competition season consisted of three regional events, the 1997 Motorola Midwest Regional in Chicago, Illinois, 1997 DEKA New England Regional in Manchester, New Hampshire, and the 1997 Johnson and Johnson Mid-Atlantic Regional as well as the 1997 National Championship|National Championship at the EPCOT Center at Disney World.

This year was the first year that teams were required to display their team number on their robot. Team numbers for 1997 were generated by alphabetizing the list of teams by sponsor and school and assigning them in order. More information about pre-1998 team numbers is available here.

Playing field and scoring

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  The playing field [1]

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  Ramp dimensions [2]

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  Speed Bump dimensions [3]

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  Field Goal dimensions [4]

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  Teams 157, 191 and 144 setting up their robots for a match at the New England tournament [5]

Three robots in the red, white, and blue positions play simultaneously in the seeding rounds and earlier rounds of playoffs, with two on two matches later on.

Each match lasts two minutes. The control system is automatically enabled and disabled when matches begin and end.

Game strategy

Like in 1998, human players could contribute significantly to a match's outcome. With some practice, human players could toss and score tubes on any of the three levels of the goal, and many matches were determined by human player tubes. In some matches, a single tube thrown by a human player could be the only score for the entire match. Additionally, many teams found it much easier to load tubes into their robot from the human player than picking them up from the field, particularly when the color tube they wanted was buried in one of the stacks. Some human players would toss a tube at one of the stacks to disrupt them and make it easier for a robot to pick up a particular color tube. Some robots would immediately load the human player's three tubes on a goal capper and then place them on the goal. Effective goal cappers were usually detachable and would take significant effort to remove from the top of the goal, and were designed in such a way that it would be hard for another robot to score above it. Some robots, like team 111's, could remove a goal capper or score above it.

Pushing the stacks of tubes over towards the human player station allowed the human player to pick up the tubes and more easily load them into a claw or grabber. Opponent's tubes could be held on to to prevent them from using scored, or thrown at other robots or tubes to try to prevent them from scoring.

Because the goal spun freely, one defensive maneuver was to grab the goal or run the robot's base up against one of the sides of the goal's base and then spin it around to make it harder for other robots and human players to score. Team 148 built a grabbing mechanism and drivetrain that allowed them to grab the goal and spin it at a decent speed, with their robot spinning with the goal. A much more common defensive maneuver was to deploy a goal "capper" that would block off the top of the goal and make it hard to score tubes on top of the goal. Some detachable goal cappers could be loaded with a team's tubes before being deployed, preventing more tubes from being added.

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  Teams -53 and 100 scoring back and forth at the National championship. Team -53 has a pair of flip-down stabilizers extended [6]

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  Teams 126 and 190 scoring back and forth at the National championship [7]

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  Team 141 launching a ball while 100 gets in position to score repeatedly [8]

When playoff rounds changed to the one-on-one format, defense involving the robot became a larger focus as teams did not have to worry about the third team scoring unchecked while they defended against the second. In the championship finals, team 71 and 47's robots spent much of each match sitting in front of the opposing team's human player to prevent them from throwing tubes or loading up their robot.

Robot construction

Control system

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  The transmit side of the control system, with two PC flight sticks and RNET radio [9]

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  The receiver box (lower middle) and relay box (upper right), with RNET radio, servos, limit switches, and two drill motor battery boxes [10]

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  The receiver and relay boxes on team 45's 1995 robot [11]

For the first time, the control system included a software-programmable microcontroller and programming software. The robot side of the control system contained a BASIC Stamp microcontroller and One EEPROM contained the default program which would output controller buttons right to PWM outputs like some previous control systems and the other could be selected and programmed with custom code. This increased the potential complexity of mechanisms and automated control and allowed for more complex driver control.

Team list

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1997 team numbers are canonical.
More information about pre-1998 team numbers is available here.

Team number	Team name	Team location	Robot	Archive link
6	Alliant Techsystems Inc. & Washburn Senior High School Minnesota's Mighty Millers	Hopkins, MN		1995 frc6
1995frc10*	Davis-Standard Division & Stonington High School	Pawcatuck, CT		1995frc10
1995frc11*	Davol Inc., Subsidiary of C.R. Bard, Inc. & Central High School/Times2	Cranston, RI		1995frc11
1995frc19*	G.E. Elfun Society @ General Electric Co. & Fitchburg High School/Montachusett Regional Technical School	Fitchburg, MA		1995frc19
20	Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute & Shenendehowa High School	Troy, NY		1995 frc20
23	Boston Edison Company & Plymouth North High School	Plymouth, MA		1995 frc23
1995frc29*	Martin Marietta Corporation/Northwestern State University & Louisiana School for Math Science & the Arts	New Orleans, LA	Jack the Ripper	1995frc29
1995frc36*	PATHS/PRISM & Strawberry Mansion Middle/Sr. High	Philadelphia, PA		1995frc36
37	Florida International University & Mast Academy	Miami, FL		1995 frc37
42	Daniel Webster College/Lockheed Commercial Electronics Corp & Alvirne High School	Nashua, NH		1995 frc42
43	Dart Container Corporation & Mason Public High School The FOAMIN' BullDAWGS	Mason, MI	Dart Vader	1995 frc43
45	Delco Electronics Corporation & Kokomo High School KHS FIRST	Kokomo, IN	H2Kat (Hurryin' Hoosier Kat)	1995 frc45
1995frc52*	U.S. Naval Academy Alumni/Sandia National Laboratories & Cibola High School	Albuquerque, NM		1995frc52
55	Texas Instruments, Inc. & Austin Academy for Excellence	Dallas, TX		1995 frc55