2014 - Tanks

In the 2014 FIRST St.Louis competition the Army Ants was team captain of the 8th seed alliance. This years robot “Tanks” won the ‘Innovation in Controls’ Award at the St. Louis regional for the teams lightweight vision processing system on the cRIO. Tanks was so-named because it was the first year the team used pneumatic controls.  Pneumatics were used to deploy rotating “chopsticks” to pick up the rather large ball.  Tanks then launched the ball using a motor-driven welded hoop.  Pickup worked well and the ball tosss was well executed.  This was the first year with Dr. Kevin Gillis as Chief Mentor and Dr. Janet Bagby handling the business end of the team.  Dr. Andy Winslow began as programming mentor this year