A dozen members of Ferradermis travelled to Rockford, Illinois on Saturday, July 22 to compete with 30 robots from Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and Wisconsin at the Rock River Robotics Offseason Competition (R2OC) at Rock Valley College. This was an opportunity for the team to work with many other teams that they had never encountered in competition before.
The team was led onto the field by Driver Andrew O’Toole, Operator Ace Hudec, Human Player Erison Dreksler, Technicians Chacha Binagi and Rae Breisath, and Drive Coach Jacob Lee. Other team members worked together to scout robots and prepare for matches and alliance selections including Emerson Dunham, Zoe Olson, and Andrew Zimmermann. Margaret Brown took on the job of filming each match for the Drive Team to analyze and use to adjust strategy between matches. Administrative Team members Maddi LaHaie and Ghati Binagi took care of our team’s donation to the event’s collection of toiletries and canned food for the Rockford Rescue Mission. We were also joined by Class of 2023 alum Mel Prince and mentors Rob Prager, Mark Zimmermann, and Rich Grosse, along with several parents who helped lead the cheers from the stands.
Ferradermis went 3-2 in their five qualification matches, but they earned enough ranking points to be ranked 8th out of 30 teams at the end of quals. Ranking points not only come from wins but from other tasks the robots perform while on the field. According to stats on The Blue Alliance website, Ferradermis was ranked 4th overall in scoring during the autonomous period, 4th overall in scoring during the tele-op period, and 2nd overall in scoring during the end game, placing them high on other team’s lists for alliance selections.
Although they were already in the position of being the #8 alliance captain during alliance selections, Ferradermis was the first pick of the #4 alliance captain, Team 3061 Huskie Robotics from Naperville North High School in Naperville, Illinois and gladly accepted their invitation to move to the higher ranked alliance. 6574 and 3061 then invited Team 648 QC ELITE Flaming Squirrels, a community team from the Quad Cities in Iowa as their next pick. The four-team alliance was finalized when the group added Team 967 Iron Lions from Linn-Mar High School in Marion, Iowa to their team. Normally alliances only consist of three teams, but in certain events a fourth robot is added as a back-up.
The alliance’s playoff run did not last long as 6574 struggled with an electrical issue in the first match that left their bot unable to drive, and the bot belonging to our captain 3061 quickly tipped over in the second match of the double elimination tournament. The team spent the remainder of the day cheering on PWNAGE, an historically successful community-based team from St. Charles, Illinois, that will be disbanding after this event due to the loss of their sole sponsor, who also housed the team’s workspace, after the company was sold. Teams in FIRST Robotics are either considered school-based or community-based, and listening to this team’s story made Ferradermis even that much more grateful for the broad support they receive from their multitude of sponsors in the Whitewater community as well as the school district.
If you’d like to learn more about Ferradermis, the team will have the robot at the Whitewater City Market on July 25, August 8, and August 22 (weather permitting). They will also be in action at Mukwonago High School on Friday, July 28 from 2:00 – 6:00 pm and Saturday, July 29 from 9:00 am – 4:00 pm for MROC, the Mukwonago Robotics Offseason Competition. This event is free and open to the public. Additional new members will be accepted at the start of the school year. Incoming freshmen will have the opportunity to sign up at the Activities Fair on the first day of school. Other interested students should reach out to a current team member or to advisor Laura Masbruch. There will be a mandatory parent meeting for all participants on Wednesday, October 4, at 7:00 pm in the high school library. The team will have one more off-season competition this fall with the current robot before beginning to build a brand new robot for a totally different game when it is revealed in January.
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