UC-Botics attended Sedalia Missouri this last weekend for the Central Missouri Regional with Alexandria’s Mechatronics 3313. The ride share of a charter bus was a fabulous experience, and the drive really was (what seemed) fast! Our kids did an excellent job of getting our trailer loaded, being on time with the travels and the distance and overall just were outstanding!
Wednesday on the ride down, we took a “quick” detour through Kansas City to visit Arthur Bryant’s famous BBQ restaurant. It was a marvelous meal where we ended up getting two huge sampler platters for everyone to try a little bit of everything! Following we drove by and took some quick photos of Kansas City’s two Fields side by side where the Royals and the Chiefs play.
In Sedalia Missouri our students unloaded on Thursday morning, and Began the process of inspections, scouting and practice. Our Robot went through inspections the Fastest it ever has! it took from start to finish around 25 minutes. We found out we were actually a total of 2 pounds over in weight (Which was a simple fix as we strapped on almost 50 pounds additional at home!). After we managed to do some practice matches which were very enlightening to set the tone for competition! Some of the teams had already experience and skill of pother regional events, and many had this as their first event also (like us!). Practice day was great to be on the field, and we also managed (in our last practice round) to cause a booboo to our robot’s intake, that needed almost two hours of repairs!
After Practice matches on Thursday, our students were welcomed to a social event for all teams, a Pancake and Sausage feed with a DJ and Live music. It was a fun experience seeing the teams get up and dance to the songs together, the Pancakes tasted excellent, and was a nice experience to finish our day off!
Friday was the beginning of Competition and our Introduction Ceremony was kicked off by the Senior Parade. UC-Botics’ three seniors represented their colleges of choice in the parade as we started the morning off. Following there were a total of 10 matches we competed in for Friday with Qualifications. Right away however in Match one – our Elevator Broke! This was a major component that allowed our arm to raise and lower properly to pick up game pieces from off the floor and also the side walls. It was a huge setback because getting a true repair for it wasn’t going to be easy, and with matches only being around 20 minutes apart. Try as we might, our team managed to come up with a solution to put us back in the game quickly, and we were still able to compete (unfortunately not as effectively as we would have liked!).
In the conclusion of our Friday event, both Alexandria and Upsala left the arena, raced back to the hotel to get changed as we then shipped off to Kansas City again to visit the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts to Watch the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra perform Holst’s “The Planets” and also Caroline Shaw’s “The Observatory.” A unique experience and a wonderful opportunity to see something completely new to our students, and to understand and value the Arts in a performing manner!
Saturday brought the last rounds of Qualifications, with UC-Botics ending with a final record of 4-8-1. Just before lunch was Alliance selections, in which the 5th seeded alliance chose our team as a third pick! We graciously accepted and UC-Botics was ready to compete in the double elimination finals matches! Partnered with Alliance captain 5098 Sting-r and 6391 Ursuline Bearbotics, our 5th seeded alliance went 1-2 overall and placed 6th overall through eliminations.
Following Finals our team was graced with the “Judge’s Award” in recognition of the work and efforts our team and school has done to help support FIRST, Teams and schools across the state. Our two presenters Hunter and Brayden did a fabulous job sharing their experience being on the team, and sharing how FIRST has made an impact on them.
A successful trip, New experiences had by all, and a great opportunity to share Minnesota with Missouri! Thank you to all of the students who attended, the Support and sponsors who helped make our robot building possible, and to the parents and families for keeping our robotics program going!
Team 4480 UC-Botics 