We've been published!

After winning the Rockwell Automation Innovation In Control Award at the Championships in Atlanta in 2007,  Team Voltage was given the honor to be included in a book which was published by Rockport Publishers that  highlights many of the award winning robots of the 2007 FIRST Robotics Competition season.

FIRST Robots: Rack 'n' Roll
Behind The Design
Published by Rockport Publishers 2008
www.rockpub.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-59253-411-1
ISBN-10: 1-59253-411-2

Excerpt from the book:

"Making Control Look Easy

Receiving the Rockwell Innovation in Control Award was no shock to Team 386, which claimed that winning was easy. This perspective stemmed from the fact that the most important sensor on the robot was the Staples Easy button, often featured in advertising as a single magical button to solve all kinds of problems.

The Easy button was a critical sensor on the team's robot. When it was activated, it signaled that a tube was scored and all was indeed well. Upon scoring, a team member's cheer of "That was" would be answered immediately by the rest of the team saying, "easy."
 

Early analysis of the game forecasted that the most problematic element would be placing a ringer on the scoring rack. Given this challenge, the team set out to make this task as easy as pos­sible for the drivers. Team 386's discovery of the easy method for control resulted from the team's insistence that feedback should be an important design feature. The team's control elegance in­volved an innovative method of creating a vacuum, an integrated collection of sensors, and the Staples Easy button."