2024 Season Recap
Today, Morpheus is proud to present our 2024 season recap video! The video is available on our Media page and on YouTube.
FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is an international competition where high school students must build a robot to compete in a new game each year. Through their time in FRC, students learn important engineering principles related to physics, mechanical design, manufacturing, electrical systems, programming, statistical analysis, presentation skills, and much more.
Morpheus is the name of an independent neighborhood FRC team based in Concord, New Hampshire, not affiliated with a high school. The team has been active since 2015, and operates on the motto “Dream Big.” Despite having a small number of students, they always aim for the top no matter what. Students on the team come from all over New Hampshire, and are encouraged to pursue excellence in every activity. This year, their hard work paid off in a big way.
Each year on the first Saturday of January, FIRST, an organization based in Manchester, New Hampshire, livestreams a kick-off event to reveal the new FRC game to teams around the world. Teams then have 6 weeks to fully design, build, wire, and program their robots before competitions start. At competitions, matches are 3 vs 3, so each team must work with two other teams to get points and win against the other “alliance” of three robots. Robots get points by performing various tasks within the game, including both autonomous and student-controlled actions. For each district or region in the world, teams participate in competitions against other teams in their area, and if they rise to the top, they advance to the FRC World Championship, which hosts 600 of the best teams in the world, out of over 3000 existing teams.
From the first day of the 2024 season, Morpheus students and mentors worked hard to come up with robot designs that would be competitive in this year’s game. They started with prototyping and computer-aided 3D modeling, and over the course of 6 weeks, the robot came to life. Soon, the time came for the New England district competitions, but Morpheus was ready, along with their robot, “Squall,” named after the night when a snow squall took out the power in the workshop, and students had to continue working by flashlight. In their two district events, Morpheus ranked 3rd and 2nd respectively, with an overall win-loss-tie record of 20-9-1. Additionally, the students earned the Judges’ Award for being one of the judges’ favorite teams, and the Autonomous Award, for demonstrating high-performance autonomous robot actions.
The team’s performance earned them a spot at the New England District Championship (NEDCMP) in Springfield, MA, along with the other top teams in New England. After a grueling day of qualification matches, Morpheus ended up ranked 11 out of 48. Despite not being in the top 8, their performance did not go unnoticed, and they became the first pick of Alliance 5. Together with their alliance, Morpheus climbed through the double elimination bracket, and finished the competition ranked 3rd in their division! Overall in New England, Morpheus was ranked 20 out of 182 teams, with the top 30 teams qualifying for the World Championship.
The team had less than a week to make necessary fixes and upgrades to the robot before it had to be shipped out to Houston, TX. A week after that, the team members made the journey to Houston themselves to pick up their robot in the massive George R. Brown Convention Center, the venue for the FRC World Championship. From the very first moment, the students and mentors were hard at work, setting up the pit, checking the robot for damage, calibrating the robot, and gathering information on the other 73 teams in their division. Over the course of the next two days, Morpheus ended up ranked high enough to be the 8th alliance captain! After a long night of careful analysis, the team came in the next morning, ready to choose their alliance partners. The choices? First, Texas Torque, a team from Texas who was ranked surprisingly low for their performance, and was sure to be overlooked by the other alliance captains. Second, Huskies, a team from Illinois whose game design challenge submission from 3 years ago was the inspiration for part of the 2024 game. And Third, as a backup robot, Pantherbots, a team also from Texas who was known and trusted by Texas Torque to be reliable in a pinch. With the alliances set, it was time for the double elimination bracket. As the lowest seeded alliance, Morpheus and partners were the underdogs, with their first match being against the 1st seeded alliance, a definite powerhouse of the division. The first match ended as a loss for Morpheus, but just barely. Since their first match was a loss, it meant that any further loss would be the end of their journey. But the students were not shaken. With a rousing motivational speech from the coach of Texas Torque, everyone found a fire in their spirits. One win after another, the alliance worked like a well oiled machine, and eventually, they had to face the 1st alliance again; a chance at redemption. It was a close match once again, but this time, the 8th alliance came out on top, by a mere 3 points! In a satisfying sweep, the 8th alliance won all their remaining matches, securing their spot as the Johnson Division champions! In addition to their victory, Morpheus also received the Innovation in Control Award, for their innovative integration of sensors to control the robot.
After winning the division, Morpheus and their partners went on to compete in the Einstein super division, a double elimination bracket featuring the winning alliance of each of the 8 World Championship divisions. Unfortunately, Morpheus’ alliance lost two matches in a row. However, the first loss was against the eventual world champions, and the second match was lost by only one point. The alliance's performance showed without a doubt that their spot on the Einstein field was well deserved. Overall, Morpheus ended the season as the captain of the alliance that placed 7th in the world this year, and next year, they will be aiming for the very top!
Of course, the team would not have been able to make it so far without the support of various donors, mostly family, friends, and local companies. Morpheus would like to extend their heartfelt gratitude to all of the team’s generous sponsors this year!
2023 Code and Swerve X Modifications Release
In compliance with FRC rules, we are releasing our software components developed during 2023 and our modifications to the WCP Swerve X that we may use in the future.
A compressed archive of the source code can be downloaded here and a zip file of our modified Swerve X can be downloaded here.
2023 Aerospacefest
On September 16, 2023, Team 5813 participated in the 2024 Aerospacefest. Every year, the McAuliffe-Shephard Discovery Center hosts local STEM groups, astronomers, and scientists for a day of learning and outreach to the community. This year, we brought our 2020 robot Tornado and had a fantastic time launching Power Cells for kids to catch and talking to the public about the opportunities for STEM education through FIRST. As usual, we also had a great time talking to the other exhibitors and learning about what's out there. We can't wait to work with the Discovery Center again!
2023 Season Recap
Team 5813 is proud to present our 2023 Season Recap video which can be viewed on our Media page or on YouTube.
In the 2023 Charged Up season, the team won the Innovation in Controls award at the Rhode Island District, made it to the semifinals at both the Rhode Island District and the North Shore District, and made it to the quarterfinals in the Meir Division at the New England District Championship. This was the second-time in our history that we competed in the elimination rounds at the District Championship!
In the offseason, we were eigthfinalists at Battlecry. For the fall, we will be working on some exciting projects, including an offseason swerve robot! We had a fantastic time this season and learned a lot; we can't wait for the 2024 season!
2022 Aerospacefest
On September 10, 2022, Morpheus was once again honored to participate in the annual Aerospacefest at the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center. This year, we brought both our 2016 robot Goatnado and our 2021 at-home robot Microburst. Throughout the day, we talked with the community about STEM, engineering, and FIRST, and used our robots to launch gamepieces into the hands of excited kids and spectators. We also had the chance to explore some of the other exhibits and had a great time learning about telescopes. Morpheus had a fantastic time at the 2022 Aerospacefest and can't wait to come back next year!
2022 Season Recap
Today, Morpheus is proud to present our 2022 season recap video! The video is available on our Media page and on YouTube.
The 2022 Rapid React season has been our most successful ever! This year, not only did we win the Autonomous Award at Pine Tree and the Innovation in Controls Award at North Shore, but we also won both competitions to earn our first and second ever blue banners! We were beyond excited about earning two banners in the span of two weekends! These successes placed us 3rd in New England heading into the District Championship. Following unique rules for this season, we chose to skip the District Championship and head straight to the World Championship in Houston, Texas. At the Championship, we competed in the Roebling Division against some of the best teams in the world. While we didn't make it as far as we had hoped, we learned a lot and had a great time. A highlight of our trip was getting the chance to visit 118's workshop and get to see how they make their robots.
In the offseason, we placed third at the prestigious Battlecry event and at Summer Heat. This season has been amazing, and we can't wait to get to work again in preparation for next season!
2021 Code Release
In compliance with FRC rules, this is our release of software components developed before and during 2021 that we may reuse in the future. A compressed archive of the source code can be downloaded here.
2021 Season Recap
Team 5813 is proud to announce that our 2020 and 2021 reveal videos are now available on our Media page and on YouTube.
Morpheus had a great season in 2021. During the regular season, we built Microburst, a small, simple robot to compete in the At-Home Challenges. Microburst competed in the Scandium Group of the Infinite Recharge At-Home Skills Challenges and placed third overall. Additionally, we competed in the 1st and 3rd BAE Systems Minibot Challenges and were awarded the 2nd Place Most Innovative Solution Award for the 1st challenge, Mondrian Madness.
In the offseason, we upgraded our 2020 robot, Tornado, with our new knowledge and competed in several offseason events. We were semifinalists at the first day of Battlecry and rebounded as undefeated winners of the second day of Battlecry! This streak continued to River Rage, where we were again undefeated winners. We culminated this incredible season as winners of the New Hampshire Governor's Cup/Battle of the Bay and earned the title of State Champions! The team had a great year in 2021 and is excited for the upcoming 2022 Rapid React season!
2021 Aerospacefest
Morpheus travelled to The McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center on September 4, 2021 to participate in the annual Aerospacefest! We brought our 2016 robot, Goatnado, and had a great time chatting with members of the community and launching Boulders to excited members of the public. As usual, we had a fantastic time and are excited to work with the Discovery Center again in the future!
BAE Systems Minibot Challenge #3: Frantic Fetch
After opting to not participate in the second minibot challenge due to the Infinite Recharge at Home challenges, Morpheus was excited to participate in the third of the BAE Systems minibot challenges: Frantic Fetch. In Frantic Fetch, the ROMI robot must navigate the same course as the Bounce Path from Infinite Recharge at Home, but this time, the robot must pick up three golf balls at certain points along the path. Both the mechanical and software subteams collaborated on this robot, and we were proud to achieve a raw autonomous time of 16.37 seconds and a raw teleoperated time of 16.17 seconds. Each golf ball scored in the end zone reduced the time by 3 seconds, so our official times are 7.37 seconds for autonomous and 7.17 seconds for teleop. 5813's robot attachment was designed to be lightweight and passive for maximum simplicity. The catcher features three indexing flaps that hold the three golf balls in place during the runs. In the award ceremony today, we did not receive any awards, but we had a great time and learned a lot! Congratulations to all of the teams that participated in Frantic Fetch!
5813's autonomous run can be viewed here.
5813's teleoperated run can be viewed here.