2014 GRITS Trophy Design for Georgia FIRST Robotics Off Season Aerial Assist Game

It’s become an annual tradition - Automation Direct once again provided UNIQUE trophies for this years’ Georgia FIRST ‘GRITS’ tournament. And of course, the trophies are built from Automation Direct’s vast inventory of over 13,000 in stock automation parts! GRITS is a one-day robotics competition held at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta that allows teams to experience this years’ challenge one more time before launching into the new challenge for next year. It is an excellent opportunity to get new teams and students excited about FIRST. This years’ trophies have a safety theme utilizing Contrinex light curtain’s AND an on-board CLICK PLC. When you break the beam between the light curtain’s transmitter and receiver, the PLC changes the flashing patterns on the Werma Beacons and Cutler Hammer stack lights. The audible beep is generated from an Alarm Buzzer which can be silenced by turning the three-position on/off/silent switch to the silent position. And of course, like all good safety systems there is a backlit E-STOP button with a twist to release latching mechanism. This years’ FIRST competition; ‘Aerial Assist’, required tossing a large ball over a truss. The ‘truss’ in this trophy design is built from a group of pushbutton enclosures and attached to the light curtains with a 3D-printed part designed by a FIRST robotics student. Trophies were awarded to the four-team alliance that won the competition and also to teams for Spirit, Outreach and Coopertition. Congratulations to the winners of these one-of-a-kind trophies.