2010 Season Synopsis

Saber Robotics began the  2010 Season prepared for any challenge laid down before us.  Our meetings began in early September in order to ensure that we would be prepared for our next journey to FIRST place. We again divided into sub teams, and began to study for the immense tasks which were ahead of us.

Our mentors had encouraged students to take on more leadership responsibility and to promote this, the team implemented a Leadership Board compiled of different members from each subteam. This board met before each meeting to discuss everything that was going on and also to set short-term and long-term goals.

On January 9th, we all gathered at school in the early morning, not knowing what was in store for us. We headed to Waukesha County Technical College to see what the 2010’s challenge would be. The game was called “Breakaway.” In Breakaway, a robot must kick balls into goals in a setup similar to soccer. Bonus points could be earned if a robot was able to lift itself off the ground and grab onto a beam hanging above the field. This game gave us many new challenges we had never had to face in previous competitions.

On the Thursday of the Buckeye Regional in Cleveland, Ohio, we attached a vacuum system that we had created beforehand to help our robot control the balls better. We also modified the frame to help prevent tipping. These improvements greatly enhanced our robots performance, and we were seeded 14th and selected by the 5th Alliance, Teams 2252 and 3010. After making it through grueling quarter- and semi-finals, we made it to the finals. The first match was close, 5 to 4, with us barely on top. The second match was agonizingly back-and-forth, with the other alliance winning 7 to 6. The third and final match, the one that would determine which teams were headed for Atlanta and which teams were headed home, the match that left every member’s throats aching from screaming and cheering, was far different from the others. In this match we dominated, the final score being 6 to 3. This was due to the amazing skill and coordinated grace of our entire alliance. Team 2252, our superb defender allowed Team 3010 and us to score, score, and score again.

We made it to Atlanta. We were actually going to the championship. We were all in awe of what all of our hard struggles had yielded. Two of our mentors left Tuesday night and drove down with vans stocked full of all the robotics stuff we needed, such as the battery cart, tools, almost everything except the robot. Early on Wednesday morning, our pit crew flew down to Atlanta so that they could unpack that night. The rest of the team left later Wednesday afternoon. Thursday we awoke eager to continue the success we had seen in Cleveland, and despite an error involving wires and plugs, we were fairly pleased with our practice matches. In our qualification matches however, we fell down the slippery slope of malfunction and we all felt the disappointment. Everyone on the team was put under the stress of immediately having too much to do and too little time to do it in. Some of the team treated themselves to a night out and attended RoboProm. However, at the team meeting Thursday night, we were brought back to reality with the pain in Mr. Dicks’ words, “everything that could have gone wrong with the robot, did.”

Friday was met with much anticipation. We wanted, nay, we needed, a chance to prove ourselves worthy. Our mentor Dave Woods had gravely reminded us the night before that many teams have their alliance selections in mind by Friday night and use Saturday to check what they already knew. In many ways, we felt this was our last chance at success in this competition. To put it shortly, it did not all go as planned. We lost four out of five of our matches. After Friday’s competition, we went to the aquarium as a team, and after the hardships of the day we had just completed, watching the fish was a welcome distraction. As we returned to the hotel, Ms. G loudly told us all to return to meet at 10:00. Then, she quietly went up to each of us and told us to be there by 9:45, for it was Mr. Dicks’ birthday and we were going have a surprise party for him. We all gathered, signed his card, and waited eagerly for him to arrive. When he did walk in, we all began to sing “Happy Birthday to you”. He was so pleased and just kept smiling. He happily blew out the candles, read his card, and opened his gifts. Then we all passed out the cake and ice cream and settled into the real task at hand. We all discussed the pros and cons of our day, and what could have been done better. At the end of the meeting this is what Mr. Dicks’ had to say-“Yesterday I said that everything that could have gone wrong did. And I was wrong.”

Saturday, Saturday, Saturday. We tried our best in the few remaining matches before alliance selections. Unfortunately we were not selected to join an alliance for the finals in our division, Newton. We cannot deny the disappointment we felt when we were not selected, but we still felt important as members of the WISA. WISA is the Wisconsin Scouting Alliance, and our mission is to see a Wisconsin team on Einstein, and hopefully to win. The WISA aids Wisconsin teams by scouting their own divisions so that when a Wisconsin team wins their division, they are not going in blind and they have the information gathered by multiple other teams. Unfortunately that goal was not accomplished. Saturday night, however, was a blast. We went to the finale and there were carnival rides, comedians and food.

Sunday we had a chance to sleep in. Many of us didn’t wake up until approximately noon. Then we split into two groups, some of us heading out to the ball game, and some of us heading to the Coca-Cola museum. The baseball game was a lot of fun, although some came back looking a little burned. The Coca-Cola museum taught us a lot about the history of soda and they had a big room where you could have as much of the many different Coke products as you want. When we were done, we all met up at “Taco Mac’s” which was basically an Atlanta version of Buffalo Wild Wings.

Monday, we all woke up early and took the MARTA to the airport. There we boarded and as the airplane began its ascent, some of the team slept, exhausted by the long weekend we had endured, and others sat quietly and reflected. It was a generally wonderful experience and we are glad to have gotten the opportunity to go to the 2010 FIRST Robotics World Championship.