April 6, 2014

King TeC FRC Robotics Team Advances To World Championships!


King TeC FRC Robotics Team Advances To World Championships!
Todd Swank's Diary Entry for April 6. 2014


Last Saturday, we went to the Minneapolis Regional FRC competition with the Prior Lake High School Team, King TeC at Mariucci Arena.  We were all geared up for some hot bot action.


Sixty teams showed up to compete and the day was filled with 3 on 3 matches where the robots had to allign together to pass balls to one another and score them through different goals.  Here's a video showcasing this year's rules:



In the first regional tournament we attended in Duluth, our team's robot had mechanical issues and didn't qualify for the finals.  We were hopeful that those issues were now resolved so we could do much better this time around.


Luke has been practicing his pom pom skills for weeks.  He was all pumped up to cheer on his team during the matches.


I keep asking Avery if he's fitting in with the other kids and this is the response he gives me.  Maybe I need to start asking him questions like these in private.


Robotics tournaments are very exciting because so many people get into the spirit by dressing up to support their team.  Occasionally fights break out between the different team mascots, but we're pretty sure those are meant to be all in fun.  We rarely see any blood drawn.


During the lunch intermission, we get to escape the kids for awhile and go spend some fun time with other adults!  We then go back and tell them we didn't enjoy being away from them, but smile, laugh, and high five when they're not looking.


Our robot still dealt with mechanical issues throughout the day, but the team was very excited when another team selected them to go to the final rounds.  Unfortunately, they didn't fare very well in those rounds either.  We kind of thought the day was over, but then the team discovered they won the biggest award of the day, the Regional Chairman's Award.  This goes to the team that does the most in a year to mentor other robotics teams and support robotics in the community.  This team does all sorts of events year round and was well deserved to win which allows them to advance to the World Championships of FRC robotics in St. Louis, Missouri.  Here's the video that helped them win this award:



This is a good group of kids.  We are very blessed to live in a community that has a program like this and so proud of our boys for being a part of it.


Best of all, being part of this team gives us an opportunity to make the boys pose with one another while wearing crowns and capes!  It doesn't get much better than that!


Even though we suffered through another blizzard in the middle of this week, we've started seeing signs of Spring the past couple of days and even have a stream near our neighborhood that has unfrozen and started flowing again.  That makes Sunny smile.


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