Troubles with Chuck (4 photos)

NEWS RELEASE

KNIGHTS OF ALLOY

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The Sault Ste. Marie high school robotics team The Knights of Alloy had two more round robin matches to finish off the seeding portion of the Queen City Regional FIRST Robotics competition in Cincinnati.

With a ranking of 40th of 57 going into the morning session, it was a must-win situation for the ADSB student team.

Overnight improvements to the computer program, made by team programmer Peter LaRue, allowed the team’s robot Chuck to attempt an autonomous scoring run in the opening seconds, and Chuck did not disappoint, scoring an opening six-point shot with its first attempt, and the second just going high and over the backboard.

In driver mode, Chuck attempted to cross the bridge to get to the opponent’s end but was flustered by a basketball that was lodged under the bridge and blocking the full tilt of the ramp.

Unable to cross or get up the ramp, the team’s alliance went down to a 65-12 defeat, slipping further down the ranking.

The final match and Chuck was once again scoring in Autonomous mode, opening with a five-point shot.

In driver mode, an alliance partner went off-plan and blocked the Sault team’s attempts to cross the alliance ramp, so Chuck was forced to try the center ramp.

With too much speed over the ramp, team 1535’s robot caught a bumper on the bottom and flipped over on its face again, stranded for the remaining 90 seconds of the two-minute match.

A loss of 34-21 pushed the team down to a final standing of 53rd overall and left them with little chance to be selected for the playoffs.

As expected the playoff draft did not choose the Sault team and they wrapped up their robot to bring it home.

One final set of judging awards followed the playoffs but team 1535 was unable to bring any awards home, which means that their season is finished, and there will be no World Championship competition for them this year.

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