The Offseason: Moving Forward

Now, since we finished the competition season (at least for us), we began reflecting on this season. We (the whole team, including parents and mentors) filled out a season reflective essay. Then, during the next week after Davis, we focused on each part of the team and made SWOT sheets about them. SWOT is Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. We had group discussions about the parts of the season (robot, leadership, outreach, etc.) and came together as a class to discuss altogether.

The Battle of Davis

Davis was not our best competition. Robot-wise, Inland Empire was better. We ran into problems early. One of our Jaguars went down, so we had to disconnect on of our CIMs on the other side to compensate. From that point on, we were on 2 CIMs. At the end of Friday, we were 3-5. The next day, Saturday, on one of the matches Freyja was hit so hard that the weld on the right side of the intake broke. We got through that and ended 5-7 in qualifications, ranked 32nd out of 54. We were picked by the #6 alliance, the Raging C-Biscuits. Somehow, we went right through quarterfinals and made it to semifinals, where we lost to the Robodogs. In Match 2 of the semifinals two of the robots on our alliance, including our robot, were disabled. They ended up being the wild card to go to the World Championships. Leah was a FIRST Dean's List finalist and is on her way to the World Championships. We won no team awards, the first regional without one in a long time. Still, we worked through our robot problems and made it to semifinals!

After competition.

Working on Freyja.

Davis Preparations

Before Davis we have decided that we need to make new bumpers (non-reversible) for functionality as well as aesthetics.  We also have decided to switch our drive system to chain. Besides that we have also been working on trying to get a two ball autonomous period.
Still to Wednesday, our bumpers are not finished. We decided that they would stay behind since people may still be painting them while some of us go up to Davis to drop off the robot.

The Aftermath of the Empire

The Inland Empire regional was very rewarding to the team because we learned what problems the robot had early on and learned how to prevent them from happening.  At the end of Friday we had found all of the problems regarding the shooter and intake and found solutions to said problems.  Early on on Saturday the drive team had some good matches giving them more experience and their first real look at driving this game.  At the end of the day we won the Entrepreneurship award and were seeded 9th. On Saturday we continued to play excellently and ended up finishing 5th seed (one of the highest ever for our team at its first regional competition) in qualifications.  We ended up getting into the semifinals before losing to the #2 alliance in Match 3, 123-108. However Quarters Match 1 and Match 2 were very good for us. This competition really helped the scoutmaster understand what arts of our scouting system need to be updated and gave the drive team more confidence in their skills.

Scouting.

After competition.