The First District Competition

With the amount of workload with school and the robot, our editors haven't been able to post. Anyway, Friday and Saturday (2/28/14 and 3/1/14) were the dates of our first district competition, over at Auburn Mountainview High School. After having the smoothest inspection 3781 as ever had, we actually had time to play a practice match! (which we found our autonomous code was too long). Going into Qualification Matches, we had a 6:6 win:loss ration, and had a 5 win streak on Friday. We kept burning out our Jaguars, and weren't sure why.

But, even with several issues on our robot causing us to opt out of two matches, we had some great accomplishments. One of our goals this year was to have a scoring robot: which we did. In several matches we scored in the low goal, and in a few matches helped gain assist points. Another goal was to have a working autonomous; which we did. In most matches [that the Jaguars weren't burned out in] we were able to drive forward and empty the ball into the low goal.

And although we didn't get into the Elimination Matches, 3781 got as close as they have ever came to it. 3781 was the first alternate to Elimination, meaning that if a robot in Elimination couldn't make it to a match, we would be moved in instead. Although no robot in Elimination broke down, it was still as close as we have ever come.

All together, the competition went well! We made our goals, and were as close to Elimination as we have ever been before. Out of 32 participating teams at the district, we ranked 19. Overall: best competition this team as seen yet!

We have took what we messed up on last competition, and are preparing for the next one in a few weeks (3/21/14 and 3/22/14). We plan on switching the Jaguars to Talon SR, and will add Omni-wheels for better turning. The shooter is also another goal for us, but our main focus is making a more competitive robot.

-- Philip Rader