On January 6th, 2024, our team hosted a FIRST Tech Challenge scrimmage in Elon, North Carolina. It was an amazing opportunity to be able to provide more practice for our FIRST community, especially for the rookie teams that participated. We had a full house of sixteen teams that graciously preformed their best during the competition. The teams were all kind and helpful to others throughout the day that created a loving atmosphere for all interested in robotics. Lots of questions were asked and being able to see each others designs was inspiring and created impacts on each team.

Fundraising

We created a concessions stand to act as a fundraiser for our team. We pre-made homemade cookie dough and other baked goods. We also bought drinks, pre-packaged snacks to sell individually, and ordered pizzas that could be bought by the slice or whole. It was not only great for our team, but all the hungry teenagers and coaches that needed a little extra fuel for the big day. In total we created a $105 profit that will go towards team funds. Big thanks to the parents and younger siblings, Elle and Abigail, for helping out!

Set-up

The night before, our team met at the church we were hosting at to set up for the event. With the help of team 5064 Aperture science who brought a field so that we could have both a field for matches and one for practicing. They also brought equipment to live stream the matches.

Check out our live streams thanks to @aperture_5064

Scoring: https://ftc-events.firstinspires.org/2023/USNCELS

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz4rYOXKNFg

Strategy and Outcome

During the competition our team worked hard to strategize on and off the field. We always make sure to talk thoroughly with the team we are going to be paired with in order to create the best game plan while in a match. Something we find can work well is having a “feeder bot” deliver us pixels so that we can place them strategically on the backdrop while they do not have to worry about knocking pixels down, creating and breaking mosaics, etc. Depending on our alliance partners it is an excellent strategy. Each team we work with has varying strengths however, so our gameplay will look different each match. Having this mindset during the competition allowed for our team to do fantastically in competition, which left us undefeated, first seed, and winning alliance in finals. Our pick for alliance partner was team 2827, Artificial Stupidity. They were great to work with and placed second seed in our event!

Pit Crew

Something we have also implemented this year is a “pit crew”. Our pit crew allows for each member to be responsible for a different part of our robot. Each member got assigned the part they were most knowledgeable with so they would be the best person to spot an issue when it occurs. Checks from our pit crew would happen before and after each match, this way we could spot any breakage as soon as it occurs to be able to fix it ASAP.

Conclusion

This annual event we host is always a team favorite, it always has an amazing atmosphere in a room full of people excited to learn and show off their coolest creations. It is a great way to bring the community together and learn from each other. It is heartwarming to see older teams such as ours, help out the newer or rookie teams too.