The
Salmon River and Massena high school robotics team, officially called
FRC Team 229 "Division By Zero," competed in the FRC "Ultimate Ascent"
game this year. They had six weeks to design, build, and program
a robot to play ultimate frisbee. The team actually built two robots
(#229 and #4124) and the twin robots were both designed to shoot
frisbees across a court into targets. Both robots were also built
to hang from a horizontal bar on a tower for bonus points in the
game.
The robots were both taken to the FIRST Granite State Regional
in Manchester, New Hampshire in early March, where the team competed
against 43 other teams from all over the US and Canada. 4124 was
actually the third best performing robot at the competition according
to all the scoring data. 4124 was the first pick in the elimination
matches and was selected by the number one robot to be in its alliance.
229 was the number eight robot, but was picked by the fifth robot
to be in its alliance. 229's alliance lost in the second round of
quarterfinals, but the 4124 alliance dominated the field by winning
the quarterfinal, semifinal and final matches to win the regional.
229 went to Boston, Massachusetts this past week to compete
in the FIRST Boston Regional against 50 other teams from across
the US, including teams from California and Alaska, as well as teams
from Canada and Brazil. 229 was seeded 10th at the end of the 84
qualifying rounds and was selected by the fifth seed team to go
into the finals. This alliance beat the 4th seed alliance in both
quarterfinal matches but lost to the first seed alliance in the
semifinals. However, the team did win the Judges Award for their
excellent engineering design.
4124 has now qualified to go to St. Louis, Missouri, April
23rd to the 27th for the FIRST World Championships, like they did
two years ago. Here they will compete in one of four divisions of
hundreds of teams from all over the world.
"Overall, it was a life-changing, awesome experience! Our team
really had their eyes opened to how hard work, for 12+ hours a day,
can be so much fun," commented Darcie Fregoe, Robotic Team Coach.
Salmon River Robotics Team members are: Hunter Bashaw, Danielle
Bowles, Charles Breason, Shawn Brown, Morgan Cartier, Katelyn Cook,
Nolan Cooke, Jordan D'Oliviera, Christian Duncan, Kristin Feimann,
Alex Figueroa, Sako George, Thomas Hill, Dylan Holden, Samantha
MacDonald, Rohahes Mitchell, Kyle Neufang, Christian Oliveira, Mackenzie
Phelix, Dillon Point, Lauren Ransom, Chris Taylor and Trina Thompson.
The Massena Roster includes: Ivan DeLosh, Luis Estevez, Jacob
Lavalley, Schuyler Conto, Evan Fregoe, Emily Lynch, Meghan Villnave,
Thomas Weitz, Jason Avery, Jennifer Beaudoin, Taylor Brault, Megan
Havican, Savannah Hays, Connor Paquin, Bryce Ryan, Corey Snyder,
Jacob Weed, Amber Arquette, Brianna Barley, Honni David, Meranda
DeLosh, Ryan Parkinson, Zachary Robert and Shane Chartrand.
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