West Valley Competition Update

West Valley was, in short, quite a bit of chaos. As it was the first competition for all teams attending, we knew there would be some errors field set up, driving and robots, with us being no exception. During the competition, the team brainstormed ways to improve robot performance resulting in modifications that allowed much better cycle times in later matches.

On Friday, the matches started out as hectic as expected. The matches started about two hours late and by the end of the day we were about the middle of the rankings.Saturday started out by finishing the qualifying matches. While we won each of our four remaining matches, we didn’t recover enough to be in the top eight. But, as alliances were selected, we were chosen by Team 2148, the MechaKnights from Spokane. Then, rounding out our alliance, Team 2149, the CV Bearbots from Spokane Valley, was chosen. Unfortunately, we lost out in the quarterfinals.

It was also interesting to see the way the strategy developed over time, with heavy emphasis on the gear and climbing aspects of the game throughout the competition, and shooting “fuel” (whiffle balls) coming into play later. The first match had a score of 0-8 and by the time we reached the final match the high score was 390.

We stayed to cheer on the other teams and to watch the Award Ceremony. We were surprised and excited to win the Engineering Inspiration Award! This is the second highest honor a team can receive. To be considered for this award a team must show outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team’s school and community. Winning this award means our team will automatically be eligible to compete against other Engineering Inspiration award winners at the District Championships at EWU in Cheney. Before that, though, our robot will compete at CWU in order to accumulate enough points to also qualify for District Championships. We can do this!