The Greenville High School Robowranlgers walked away as Tournament Champions from the 6thAnnual Dallas FIRST Regional held at the Irving Convention Center this weekend. Winning six straight matches in the elimination rounds, the Robowranglers finished the tournament with a perfect 18-0 record. The Robowranglers were also awarded the Motorola Quality Award which celebrates quality of the team, the robot and the team's design process.
The 2014 FIRST game, named “Aerial Assist,” places two alliances of three robots each against each other on a 25x54 foot field. Each alliance has an exercise ball that they must pass down the field to each alliance robot before it is scored in a 7ft high goal at the end of the field. Alliances can also earn bonus points by throwing and catching a ball over a 5ft truss in the middle of the field.
“In the Robowranglers’ history, we have never come home with anything less than a gold medal from this event and this weekend was no different,” stated Adrienne Emerson, Director of Robotics 9-12. After a second place finish at the Alamo Regional two weeks ago, the team spent countless tweaking and improving the robot design. The students identified the reasons they were not performing to their desired abilities and initiated changes to ensure a flawless performance.
Adrienne stated, “After 12 tough qualification matches, we remained the only undefeated team at the event and earned the spot of #1 seed. The alliance partners we chose to work with in the finals were Team 359, “The Hawaiian Kids” from Waialua, HI, and Team 457, “The Grease Monkeys” from San Antonio, TX.
Ms. Emerson continued, "I am constantly amazed at the students’ ability to function at a world class level. They learned from mistakes and failures in Alamo and were able to reflect on them and come up with solutions. Once those solutions were implemented, we were very happy with our robot and our teams’ performances. Every student performed their role to the best of their ability and it shows in our performance. The drive team, scout team, pit crew, fix-it crew, and marketing team all worked very hard and very well together. I am excited to see what we can achieve with more improvements at our next regional in Houston and at the World Championship in St. Louis."
The team will be competing next at the Lone Star Regional in Houston April 4th-6th and at the World Championship in St. Louis April 23rd-26th.
