From fall to winter, our team spent time preparing for build season in the spring. We reviewed safe machining practices, learned new procedures, and practiced these skills on a mandatory “evaluation part”. Members used their leadership and collaboration skills during the blue-box challenge (using limited materials to knock down cups) and during our annual shop project, a robot competition between class periods.

During this time we also designed moving mechanisms for a haunted house which we presented at a local elementary school. This year, the house featured a chomping “among-us” figure, a startling clown, a dangling spider, a poking skeleton head, a rabbit popping out of a box, a Minecraft creeper cracking open, and a mummy peering out the window.

In the first week of build season, we spent a lot of time discussing optimal strategy for the Reefscape game. Although this discussion continued throughout the season, we settled on prioritizing coral scoring on all four levels with a source intake. We first worked on robot 1 which revealed some design flaws that were overlooked before. After a few design reviews, we started on robot 2 which had improved mechanisms. Notably, we added spring bearings to the elevator and fixed the center of mass for climb.
After weeks of intense work, we competed in the Pinnacles Regional early on in the competition season. There, we discovered some of our robot’s strengths (scoring on barge) and weaknesses (pivot stability and intake geometry). Even though we didn’t qualify for play-offs, being at Pinnacles helped us to prepare for Idaho. In our four weeks between the Pinnacles and Idaho Regionals, we had to decide whether we wanted to alter our intake or start with a completely new design. In the end, we decided to alter the intake and shift our focus toward algae scoring. We capped off our season at the Idaho Regional, where we not only advanced to the quarter-finals, but also won the Team Spirit Award.