Post date: Apr 14, 2015 4:53:16 PM
F.I.R.S.T. Team 1403 Cougar Robotics attended the MAR District – Bridgewater-Raritan Event from March 27th to March 29th, during Week 5 of competition. This event, held in Bridgewater, New Jersey, is hosted by Team 303, The TEST Team. Most of the teams in attendance were competing in their second MAR district event of the season, in hopes of gaining enough points to qualify for the MAR Championships, held in Week 7 of competition.
On Friday evening, Team 1403 sent a group of students to Bridgewater High School to set up the team pit, unbag and register the robot, as well as drive the robot in practice matches. We also helped Team 5624, Tiger Tech, from South Plainfield, New Jersey with their registration and inspection, since this was their first competition ever. The drive team was able to practice six tote stacks with cans for the following day of competition, which would be a large improvement over our previous competition. During practice matches, our robot stood out amongst the rest. Students and mentors alike knew this was going to be a robot that could not be stopped.
The next day, Team 1403 started strong with the highest first match qualification score of 128. However after an unlucky match, Team 1403 had to climb back to the top. On the Logistics side of the team, we had an awesome Chairman’s presentation and we scouted every robot in every match throughout the event. Our drive team remained strong and consistent the rest of the day and we continued to climb up to the top. As game announcer Jeff Bunca said, “1403 has been making it look easy all day. The Montgomery powerhouse has been putting up stack after stack with ease.” Team 1403 was unstoppable, with huge qualification scores of 145, 169, and 168 boosting our qualification average match by match. Cougar Robotics posted three of the four highest scores in the whole competition. In fact, after 56 qualification matches, Team 1403 lead the scoreboard as the number one ranked team at the end of the first day of competition.
Our success continued on Sunday with a strong first few matches. In the last qualification match of the event, our team fell into the second seed spot going into alliance selections with a qualification average of 117.83, which was .25 points behind the #1 seed. We were not distracted at all from our goal of winning that blue banner (the prize for winning an FRC event).
Going into alliance selections, Team 1403 was chosen right away by the number one alliance captain, Team 1676, The Pascack Pi-oneers. Our alliance, ranked #1, consisted of Team 1676 and Team 4653, Ironmen Robotics. Our alliance soared through both the quarterfinals and semifinals with averages of 127 and 137 respectively. In the finals, it was the number one-ranked alliance verses the number two-ranked alliance, just like at Hatsboro-Horsham. With a rough first finals match, the number two alliance got the first win. Our alliance fought back strong, with an amazing second finals match, posting a 152 with our robot making three outstanding 5-tote stacks with a container on each, for a total of 108 points by our robot alone. With each alliance having one win under their belts, it came down to the third finals match to see who would win the competition.
3…2…1… RUSH! The last finals match started! 1676 grabbed the middle two recycling cans and 1403 picked up the container in autonomous, per usual. Our team started stacking and placed our first stack on the scoring platform. 1676 and 4653 up righted the cans. 1403 placed their second stack on the scoring platform, while the Pi-oneers started building their stack. As the clock ticked down, every team rushed to put last minute points onto the board. When the scores came up, the blue alliance roared! Team 1403 broke the curse. We finally won our first competition with a score of 112- 80. It was an extremely emotional few minutes that followed with many tears of joy and hugs. Something our team has been working on for 12 years was finally achieved.
It was an amazing weekend for our team. Not only did our team earn the District Event Winner Award, we also took home the Quality Award sponsored by Motorola. It was also exciting to see the team we mentor, 5624, win the Rookie All Star Award. Thank you very much to our alliance partners, Teams 1676 and 4653 for an awesome win. F.I.R.S.T. Team 1403 Cougar Robotics has already qualified for the Mid Atlantic Robotic Championships with 135 points, sitting at the third rank in the MAR point’s standings. We look forward to competing against the rest of the teams in MAR in two weeks!