Cow Town Throwdown 2015 Results

22467207410_3071749236_bOn Friday, October 30th we arrived in Lee’s Summit, Missouri for the Cowtown Throwdown off-season event. Our team quickly unloaded all of our equipment and set up our pit. We assembled our robot for practice rounds. We also began to teach new members about the flow of the rounds and the tournament, and had them practice with scouting. Our team passed out schedules for new members in order to help organize and allow them to have a better feel for the rotation of activities on both Friday and Saturday.22005910923_83507d3086_b

Soon afterwards, qualification rounds began. Our team introduced new drivers, and they were very excited to gain the experience in driving and performed well. We played in eight qualification rounds, and despite dealing with some mechanical issues, our team worked hard and quickly set about fixing the issues with our robot between rounds.

All of our endurance paid off, as we concluded our rounds ranking at number 15. We were picked by the #2 alliance, which included fellow Iowan team 525 Swartdogs3284 4-H LASER, and 5006 Apophis.

22032744504_b0b08242e2_bOur team’s robot played in the second match of the thrilling quarterfinals rounds. We all had a lot of fun watching the rounds, and enjoyed cheering on our fellow teammates and other alliance members. Our alliance performed outstandingly, and we carried on to the final rounds. After 3 exciting and closely-matched final rounds, our alliance won!

We had a lot of fun competing at Cowtown Throwdown. It was also a huge learning opportunity for new members, who got to rotate between events such as scouting, being a part of the drive team, and working in the pit crew. Returning members were eager to help and teach them about the roles in the team. All of our members had a blast, and we all gained a lot from the experience. Thanks 1730 Team Driven for hosting this wonderful event and CIT for providing our transportation!

You can watch one of our qualifying rounds below. Thanks 525 Swartdogs for the match footage!

Minnesota North Star Regional 2015 Results

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17048064332_8f8f2e6e14_oWe arrived in Minneapolis on Wednesday night and began the North Star competition on Thursday morning. After setting up our pit, we reassembled our robot and began to make some improvements that we had created since Central Illinois. We added a new tote ramp and improved our recycling container intaking. Our team did a great job working hard, so didn’t miss any practice matches. On Thursday, the scouts practiced scouting using our new scouting database.

16861934768_51b6988aec_oOn Friday, we completed our eight qualification matches. Despite a communication problem in the first match that left us immobile, we ended the day with a strong ranking. In addition, we had a great performance by our Chairman’s Award presenters. All of our pit representatives did a great job talking to judges.

After three qualification rounds, we were ranked 7th with an average score of 68.70. We were selected by 3883 Data Bits and selected 5339 Hurricanes to play with us in the playoffs. We were excited to get the opportunity to play with them! We added a center step recycling container grabber to our robot for the playoffs.

16842063157_a89f8d49f5_oAfter two high scoring rounds, we were eliminated in the playoffs. Despite this, we had a great time watching the other teams rack up exceptional scores. In the awards ceremony, our vey own Dagney Paskach won the Deans List Finalist award! Congratulations to fellow Iowan teams 5576 Terminator and 967 Iron Lions for their awards and qualification to the World Championship.