What a way to end a season; two teams traveling to States. This year it was held at the college campus, whereas last year it was at the high school, but this was a great venue. Teams 7316A and 7316C made the trip down on Friday, arriving at 4ish to run skills and turn in notebooks.
Luckily for us, that gave us time to practice before the competition and reveal any flaws. Unfortunately, that flaw list was extensive. Lifting problems, to size requirements, to driving problems and programming issues to pneumatics; anything that didn't go wrong at home, went wrong here.
That night, armed with pizza, Chipotle and soda, a bunch of us crammed ourselves into one hotel room until around midnight, working in the robots. To some, but very little avail, however, neither team made Alliance Selections. Both had great interviews, and Team C was commended on their log being the neatest engineering notebook there, but in the design race, our qualifier results spoke louder than our book. All it takes is one bad day, unfortunately.
Neither team will advance to Worlds, but we all had a great time. Four seniors returned to States one last time, three soon-to-be leaders of the club learned the wear and tear of State Finals, and three freshmen were unceremoniously dumped in an even more fast paced, highly competitive, confusing and wonderful world of robots. It was a great experience to be had by all, and we returned home tired, laughing and with new resolve to have Firestone return to Worlds. And the seniors? Most of us are staying local, or in Cleveland, so who knows, maybe club will have a new host of mentors popping in and out of meetings. I don't think any of us could give this up.
More information (and pictures from the event) on what club's activities will be once school recommences; today was a snow day, making our weekend a five day, so who knows when we'll be back?
Congratulations to all the winners on their qualification, and congratulations to all those who came together to be a part of this amazing event! It's absolutely awe inspiring what happens when students set their minds to something. ~Erica Kraus Club Secretary
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