2024 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
APRIL 2024
After competing at four regionals, we ended the season competing at the 2024 FRC World Championship with 600 teams from around the world. We were ready to compete at our best against 74 other teams in the Newton division, and our senior students enjoyed their last competition of the season!
MEETING OTHER TEAMS
With eight divisions, our team was surrounded by hundreds of excellent teams from all over the world. Our scouts began scouting in the morning, meeting new teams and seeing dozens of robot designs! By meeting new teams, our students met and developed connections with other students, learning new things and ways to design and program a robot. Later that day, our Impact Award Team joined other Hall of Fame teams, who have won the FIRST Impact Award at the World Championship level, for a team social where our students got to talk with other students from Hall of Fame teams about their impact and social differences, and they made great connections! Meanwhile, the rest of our team visited 118: Robonauts for a tour of their shop while also meeting students from other teams there. Learning about how another team designs and manufactures their robots during the build season.
DAY 2: QUALIFICATION MATCHES
During practice day, our students spent the day preparing for judges while also working on the robot. Later in the day, our team calibrated the robot to the field before qualification matches the next day. To prepare for the next day, our students discussed strategy with alliance teammates and challenges within each match.
DAY 1: PRACTICE DAY
Our team arrived early and prepared our robot for inspection before heading to the practice field and testing autos, controls, and tactics so our students could fix or adjust parts of the robot. Meanwhile, our Impact Award team was hard at work practicing their presentation and answering questions in a marathon Q&A to refresh their memory and prepare for judges coming around the pits. With the help of 341: Miss Daisy, we refined our Impact presentation for the next day.
PREPARING OUR STUDENTS
On day two, our students woke early to grab breakfast before heading down and waiting outside the venue. As the doors opened, we quickly made our way to the stands to get a good view of the field as our drive team headed over to the pits and queued for match 8. Our first match went well as we scored 141 points and began the day with a high score.
PRESENTING OUR IMPACT
Our Business, Media, and Documentation students set up their cameras and tv presentation, before heading to the field and watching the first match. Afterward, the Impact Team went back to the hotel to run through their final practices of our FIRST Impact Award (FIA) presentations. With the help of other FIA teams, we felt confident and presented our Impact presentation, leaving the room feeling accomplished after how far we’ve come this season.
STRATEGIZING WITH TEAMS
Before each match, our students fine-tuned the robot to ensure we performed our best. We worked with our teammates on their skills and how to best strategize to score the most points with each robot's focal point. By meeting and assisting teams with their robot, our students worked with others to solve problems and compete as alliance partners! By the end of the day, we ended the day 4-1-0 (Win-Loss-Tie), adjusting the robot for the next day. Our students were invited to a dinner with other teams so that they could talk and make connections with other students from other teams!
DAY 3: CONTINUING MATCHES
Day 3 began, and our team continued qualification matches, as our scouts took their place in the stands to continue watching each match. Each scout worked hard to watch robots and document their abilities to add into our list of data, preparing for the later scouting meeting. Before each of our matches, we checked our robot and spoke with our alliance partners to strategize in our match as we headed out to the field to continue qualification matches.
PERSERVERING
During the competition we faced many difficult challenges like a broken ethernet cable, which disabled our robot in front of the amp, dropping our rank down to 8th. Our scouts worked hard, watching matches and getting data on each robot's features to prepare for a scouting meeting, where we review data about each robot to create a “pick-list” in preparation for alliance selection. before the next day. In the pits, our drive team worked hard on the robot while students talked with judges and students about our outreach and robot design features. By the end of qualification matches, we ended 6th with a record of 7-3-0 (Win-Loss-Tie).
SPREADING ALOHA!
Before ending the day, our students went around each team's pit to show our Aloha by giving teams Macadamia Nut Chocolates to say good luck to teams! With the help of our scouts, we met with students from other teams to share chocolates from our home while also learning more about teams and where they are from!
DAY 4: FINAL TOURNAMENT DAY
The tournament's final day was here and we began by reviewing our scouting data before alliance selection. Meanwhile, our pit crew prepared as we moved the pit closer to the field along with other alliances. There, students prepared the robot for the playoffs and worked to strategize with our teams.
ALLIANCE SELECTION!
Qualification matches ended, and our team prepared for alliance selection to begin the day off. Our representative, Bowen C., invited teams 2974: Walton Robotics, 3937: Breakaway, and 316: LUNATECS, where we formed the 5th seed alliance and began to prepare for playoff matches!
OUR FINAL MATCHES
After the alliance selection, we began the double elimination playoffs as the second match against the 4th seed alliance, where we won by a score of 157 to 121. After our first playoff game, we then faced off against the 1st seed alliance where we unfortunately lost and were dropped down into the lower bracket. We faced off against three other alliances, finally losing in the semi-finals in match 13 against the 3rd seed alliance. Despite losing in the lower bracket, we were proud of how far we made it. We will never forget this world championship as we made great connections with other teams and each other!
Check out our other FRC Competitions!