Robotics Tournament 2018 - Ups and Downs

Another tournament season is "in the bag" and we finished with a winning record.  Our team in three seasons actually has yet to have a losing record.

FIRST Robotics is hard.  It is designed to be hard.  Breaking through from being an average team to being a top flight team is probably as difficult as expanding your little mom and pop store into the next Amazon or Walmart.  

When you win some and lose some it is easier to focus on the latter.  As usual the "smallest widget" principle kicks in....that crucial bolt that needs to be checked and tightened can let you down.  Literally.  Several got noticed by our alert pit crew.  

You also have to decide when to take risks.  It is dangerous to rewrite software fifteen minutes before a match.  If it works, great!  If not, well the pros and cons of this plan were well understood and the students made the call.

In fact the entire enterprise was the handiwork of the students.  I believe none of the adults coaching the team picked up a tool the entire event, and I can assure you the robot was entirely built by the team.

After a heartbreaking first round defeat dropped us all the way down to 57th out of 58 we went on a great run.  Here is a picture of our standings near our "High Tide" of 12th place....

Of course not everything that goes haywire is our fault.  By the end of a tournament those teams out of contention are often not giving it an all out effort, and that's easy to understand.  In our final two matches we were to some extent taking on the entire opposing 3 robot team as our alliance partners were limping along or in one case entirely immobile.  We came so close to pulling off the near impossible....

Well, they say FIRST is about more than just robots and its absolutely true.  So I make no apologies for my heart saying we had another win or two in us.  That is just my appreciation of a very fun robot and a very fun bunch of students.  

In recognition of their exhausting labors - hardly any stayed awake on the bus home - the coaches are graciously giving them 72 hours of break from robots.  Then they will show off at the high school STEM night.  And then help with the middle school robotics class.  And then do demos at......

Hmmm.  It looks as if the 2019 FIRST season will be starting pretty soon.

Good work team and parents.

Just a few fun pics of the event.

White board cartoon One.

White board cartoon two.  What sleep looks like in binary code.

We are visited by a bear.

This was a friendly bruin but does provide another metaphor for the season.  "Sometimes you get the bear.  Sometimes the bear gets you!"