March 3, 2013

Minnesota FTC Robotics Tournament 2013 Ring It Up


Minnesota FTC Robotics Tournament 2013 Ring It Up
Todd Swank's Diary Entry for February 24, 2013


It was State Tournament time for the Minnesota FTC Robotics Team, so I headed to Prior Lake High School to join in on the fun!


This year's competition is called Ring It Up.  Basically, each team's robots has to collect rings and put them on a rack.  The higher they go, the more points they get.  Here's an animation of how the game works:



My boys have been involved in the Middle School Robotics team at Prior Lake, so when KING TeC was looking for volunteers to help ref the tournament I said I'd be happy to help.  There was a bunch of other cool guys there doing the same thing.


I was pretty impressed with the size of the crowd!  There were 36 teams there to compete and each one brought a bunch of supporters to cheer them on!


Before we knew it, it was time to get it on!  We had about 60 matches to get through so we were all set for a long day!


I wasn't quite prepared for the fact that I was going to be standing on my feet for nearly 10 hours straight!  I've had too many years at a desk job to handle that.  By the end of the day, I was pretty wiped out!


Although I did get tired, I absolutely had a blast being part of such a fast paced event with so many cool kids who spent so much time building really talented robots.  I was involved in some controversial matches and really had to stay focused to do my best to not miss anything because each match had so much going on.  By the end, one team was awarded the right to advance to the World Championships which will be held in St. Louis, Missouri. 

Here's some video from the event!


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