They may not have won the tournament, but the Issaquah Robotics Society walked away from the Seattle FIRST Regional Competition on March 26 with high spirits after making an impressive showing during semi-finals.
Their robot, which was one of the top-scoring robots in the competition, won its first several rounds before succumbing to an electrical problem during the last 20 seconds of the match, which left the team finishing 13th out of 64 teams.
But after winnng all seven matches and taking top honors in the Portland regional tournament March 5-7, the team wasn’t too upset.
“For six weeks now, we have been building these robots, and whoever built the best robot did the best job, and should deserve to win,” said IRS President Elyse Edwards. “There’s no reason to be negative against other teams. It’s good, because people who hadn’t yet qualified for Atlanta have now.”
The IRS will be traveling to Atlanta, Ga. April 16-18 for the FIRST National Robotics Competition — which they approach with both excitement and apprehension.
“I’m really anxious to see how we do there,” team member Mike Martino said. “These robots are going to be the best of the best, and I just can’t wait to see how we interact and everyone functions together.”
The IRS met every day for six weeks putting the robot together and preparing it for competition — sometimes working well past midnight. Every year, the goal of the competition changes. This year, robots were equipped with trailers filled with foam balls, and attempted to deposit all the balls in another robot’s trailer.
Scant improvements will be made to the robot before traveling to Georgia: securing all wiring so there are no more electrical problems, and beefing up the robot’s drivetrain, which is the weakest point. Beyond that, Edwards said everything on the robot is working as best as it can, and the team is especially confident in its mechanism — the tool that allows it to scoop up the foam balls and drop them in another trailer.
But the biggest strategy for doing well in Atlanta is fairly simple, and has nothing to do with the robot.
“Sleeping,” said Edwards.
