We're #2!
The short story is that the the Quad Cities' high school robotics team took 2nd place at Midwest Regionals (among 37 teams from 9 states).
The long story is more interesting.
For one thing, those of you looking for Battlebots might not have been so disappointed after all. The defense was very aggressive - tipping over and flying parts were not uncommon, nor were penalties! Once other teams saw how well we scored, they defended us with all they had, kamikaze style. Twice the defending robot broke from attacking our bot. Once our bot ended up on its side - hard to score from there!
Another exciting thing was the autonomous mode, where the robot had to drive without remote control. Our team was the only one that scored in autonomous mode, in fact the only team that seriously tried, and we scored six times. Every team, even our opponents, was cheering for us to score again in autonomous. It was awesome!
Speaking of cheering for your opponent, I am quite impressed by the spirit at these competitions. Teams help each other out with advice, pats on the back, even spare parts. The competition is intense, but not ugly.
In case you thought I made a typo in the title of my last post, that was intentional. The team set several records:
- 2007 regional high score (128 = 27 for hanging 7 inner tubes in a row)
- 2007 regional highest amount of penalty points (7 10-point penalties)
- First time ever in any FIRST competition that a Finals Round took five games to decide a best 2 out of 3! (Doesn't get much closer than that! It was like a triple-overtime game. Ed, the head engineer and coach, joked, "I'm glad that's over. I was about to concede the next game!")
The team is off to nationals in Atlanta in April. Unfortunately I won't be able to go. I'll be cheering from here, and hopefully watching a live feed online.
I will post links to photos and videos soon!
Here they are:
photos:
Left - QC robot upright, in position to score. Right - QC robot knocked down.
video: Fourth match of a marathon, 5-match Midwest Regional Final. We're the robot in the orange bumpers.
Also, see the QC robot scoring in the opening autonomous mode in the 3rd Match of the Midwest Regional Final.
Hopefully better video will be up soon.
4 comments:
Congrats to the QC Robo team! Kick butt down in Atlanta, I want to see some hardware in the end.
Pass on my congrats to the team! Sounds like it was super fun. I hope they do awesome in Atlanta!
This has nothing to do with robotics.
It has something to do with physics.
It has everything to do with cute cats.
Enjoy.
Jenna & Alaina - I passed your kind words on to Nick. And, yes, it was super fun!
Tom - Physics and cute cats - my faves! And that cat is downright adorable.
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