Our FIRST FRC Competition!

It has been a busy six weeks since we bagged and tagged the robot. We have been working on buttons, T-shirts, pit decorations and general organization for our three-day field trip. Some of the team members and mentors Tom Newton and Neil Palachuk took a trailer loaded with the robot and equipment to the Century Link Event Center Wednesday evening. All team members arrived at school bright and early Thursday morning for our first day setting up the pit and trying to pass inspection. We were able to pass inspection and be prepared early enough for three practice rounds on the field Thursday afternoon (which, according to experienced FRC mentor Tom Newton, is unusual).

Friday the pits became more chaotic, as we had visits from the public and FLL expo participants. We also had many visits from and interviews with a variety of judges. They were especially interested in our Chairman's Award video and essay (a NASA grant requirement although as a rookie team we are not eligible for the award). They also seemed to be impressed with the engineering and safety journal.

Harold, our robot, during one of our qualifying matches.

The matches began after the opening ceremonies and continued until around 6:00 PM. Out robot Harold had some technical difficulties in the first few rounds, but our crew has been able to identify and fix problems quickly. We performed very well in all the remaining matches Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. By the end of the qualifying matches we were ranked in 13th place, and were eventually selected by one of the eight alliance captains to compete in the final tournament matches. We made it as far as the semifinals, but lost the two matches to the opposing alliance. We weren't disappointed because we performed well, and the previous evening we were awarded the Rookie Inspiration Award!

View videos of our first FRC competition!