On March 27 and March 28th, we brought our robot, Pebble (or Speedwagon, depending on who you ask) back for another competition- the 10,000 lakes regional (10k for short). Compared to Duluth where we were struggling with a broken intake, a loose turret, a broken climber, and a not so fast indexer, competing at 10k was a breeze. After redesigning and rebuilding virtually the entire robot, we’d fixed almost every problem we had.
Before the competition
With two weeks in between Lake Superior and 10k, we set out on fixing everything that was broken. With a little bit of CAD, rebuilding, and some programming, we had our best design yet: a fully functional, intaking, indexing, turret bot with a pretty impressive moving shot. That is, until our driver crashed it into a wall. What had seemed to be a chill day with light work turned into frantic scrambling to fix the turret that had popped off yet again. Thankfully, a couple metal brackets and some drilling fixed the problem, and we were ready for the competition.
The qualification matches
Although our performance at Lake Superior made us nervous for this competition, we started out winning every single match we were in, with no problems whatsoever. We were nailing almost every shot, scoring at least 100 points each game, and speeding up the ranks. Until match 46- our 6th time on the field. We put up our best fight, but with two of the best bots on the opposing team, we lost by almost half the points. The loss sent us from rank 2 to 5, but we left feeling good about the next three matches. These ones we were sure to win. And we did! We climbed all the way back to rank 3 (technically tied for 2nd) with 8 wins out of 9 matches.
The playoffs
Having placed in the top 8 in the qualification matches, we moved on to the playoffs as an alliance captain. On our team were 2846, the FireBears, and 2508, Armada. We were feeling confident as we headed into our first match, but early in the game, the FireBears hit a wall and disabled their intake. Now that we had one bot down, the odds of winning seemed to be leaning away from our favor, but we still played like our lives depended on it. In the end we lost the match- by only 3 points. Still, we tried not to let our spirits fall as our alliance fell into the lower bracket.
After the FireBear’s robot was fixed, we prepared for our next match feeling nervous. If we lost this match, we were out. Nevertheless, we persisted, and won. There was just one problem- our indexer had started jamming. We couldn’t find the problem, let alone find the time to fix it, so we kept on playing. Our downfall came in our 4th playoff match where this problem became even more apparent. Having won the last two matches, we entered this next one feeling good. The score went back and forth between the two alliances, but by the end we were pulling out ahead, a cascade of fuel pouring into the hub- and then our indexer jammed. Again. Thinking quick, our driver and operator sped towards the tower, and pulled off a climb with no time to spare! All that was left to do was wait to see the scores. And wait. And wait.
We lost by a mere 2 points.
We left with heads hung low- but wait!
After our second loss in the semifinals, we were out for good. We’d finished fourth, and this was arguably our best competition ever, but the loss still sucked. A lot. After bringing our robot back to the pits and cleaning up a bit, we headed back to the stands to watch the rest of the matches as well as the awards ceremony. Now that it was all over, there was a lot less excitement in the air, and everyone was ready to hop on the bus and head home. Until the awards were announced. We waited on bated breath as the judges announced the team that had won the Innovation and Control award, saying “They measured twice, computed eight times… this smooth pebble understood the field in another dimension. Congratulations team 2823!”
And the stands erupted. We’d won the award for having the best- and maybe only- working moving shot.
Congrats mentor Jeremy!
One of the highlights of this competition was seeing one of our team’s mentors, Jeremy, receive the Woodie Flowers Finalist Award. A group of students collaborated on an essay highlighting how much he has helped the team as a whole as well as the individual students on the team, and with their fingers crossed, sent it in to the judges. It was truly exciting to hear his name called by the judges. He’s well beyond earned this award, and our team was very proud to see him receive it.
To recap this competition…
Overall, we ranked 3rd in the qualification matches, and finished fourth in the playoffs, marking a huge improvement from the Lake Superior Regional. There were many challenges and hard losses that we faced, but in the end, we left with our heads held high and feeling proud of what we’ve accomplished. This season was quite the amazing season, and we look forward to next year’s competition and the challenges it will bring.
While many team members were disappointed that this would be our last competition of the season, we’re proud of our improvement from the Lake Superior Regional until now, and we look forward to building bots again next year!
(The Vanguard was designed to improve the consistency of the intake. The front section jammed halfway through qualification matches and prevented us from intaking. The best solution we could come up with before the next match was sawing off the offending section of the Vanguard. As the one who designed this mechanism, I will say it was not a fun decision to make).
(The joints of the climber have shattered and been replaced several times now. If we run with it, it is very likely it will fail during a climb and drop the robot onto the floor. We have since redesigned the climber to increase its strength, hopefully allowing us to climb more than once before breaking it).
We had another issue with encoders (sensors that tell us where our robot’s wheels are in relation to the field), causing it to be immensely difficult for our drivers to control the direction of the robot, but regardless we still cycled nicely. Despite these difficulties in our first few matches, we were coupled with some amazing partners and remained undefeated. 
scored as if they had happened after the time. When the match concluded, our alliance had been scored as 10 points behind our opponents. We quickly sent members of our alliance up to the question box, to ask judges to review the match and ensure that our points were scored correctly. The judges were able to see the jamming of the speaker scoring mechanism and adjusted our points accordingly. We were still defeated, but only by one point! Here we finished our qualification matches 8-1, ranking number 6 out of 55 teams. 
Well, we’ve partied hard but there is much work to be done- catch us at the Minnesota 10,000 Lakes regional in a couple short weeks, or at the Minnesota State Competition in early May!
