The Great Northern Regional came and went in a flash! UC-Botics spent Wednesday on the road heading to Grand Forks, ND. When we arrived around 2pm, the Team assisted in building the practice field, and unloading our own Pits. After checking into the Pits, and loading up into our Hotel, UC-Botics prepped for Thursday!
Thursday was our Practice day, And we needed it! Not so much for driving, but to adjust for what felt like a snowball of troubles occurring. After getting down into the pits, and getting our Bumpers taken off, we realized 3 of the 4 of our main drive train Gear Boxes were cracked at the base. After repairing those, we spent some time making minor adjustments and taking some time to practice on the field. Starting inspections, our team had to make a few fixes, including moving our main breaker cable, and also cleaning up some Sharp Edges. Attending the Practice field again, we experienced a few issues with our Climber. And spent greater than 2 hours resolving the binding problems we had experienced. Thursday Concluded in having resolved our climber issues, changing a gearbox, reworking our Climber Cables, repairing gearboxes, and more… Felt like a giant mountain of work we were trying to resolve!
Friday was the start of Competition, and UC-Botics started off with a Bang! The first handful of matches brought us up in the rankings, and we were happy to see our climber issues had been resolved! Having climbed twice right away, and being able to drive and pick up balls was amazing! Our team performed as well as we could, and after our third match, we discovered that we were able to Traverse fully! We managed to get to the highest bar 4 times in a row! At the conclusion of Friday, the Team sat to observe the Mentor Parade, and also through to closing Awards Ceremony. At that Ceremony, our very own Mr. Robby (Curtis Robertson), was recipient of the Woodie Flowers Finalist Award! A prestigious award, that honor and celebrates one mentor per regional in their efforts and work as a Mentor/Coach. This award, named in honor of Woodie Flowers himself, is dedicated to those who promote and provide a welcoming environment, celebrates in Gracious Professionalism, and encourages the engineering process, problem solving and the greater pursuit of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. As a Finalist Mr. Robby is now eligible this year and next to be nominated for the Woodie Flowers award at the World Championships event held in Houston and Detroit.
Saturday UC-Botics came in pumped up and ready to go with two matches left. Through it all, our team performed remarkably well, and we finished the weekend off in 21st of 49 teams overall. All the Matches are available to view at https://www.thebluealliance.com/team/4480. There you can view the individual matches of each round we participated in. Also, you can see additional details about the other local area teams that we competed with (and against!).
Thank you once again to our amazing Supporters and Sponsors for helping us with this awesome year! We could not have done it without you!
Team 4480 UC-Botics 