Team 111 WildStang, District 214’s Hall of Fame FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) team, competed in FRC World Championships in Houston last week. They seeded fifth after qualification matches in the Archimedes division, and became captain of Alliance 4. In FRC, captaining teams pick a first and second robot to be in an alliance with them and a third as a backup at World Champs. Then, eight alliances of three robots each play in a double elimination bracket to determine the winner.
In this year’s FRC game, Charged Up, the goal of the game is to score as many cones and cubes on a scoring grid as possible, traversing the field and the Charging Station, a balancing field mechanism, to fill the grid.
“The challenge was very unique in having teams pick up two different irregularly shaped objects like a cone and cube. Robot design tended to employ something more like a hand (gripper) than prior year’s shooters,” said RMHS sophomore Michael Bauer, part of Team 112 Plus One, the freshman-sophomore sister team of WildStang, about this season’s game.
Alongside their picks Team 1561 ROBODUCKS from Oklahoma, Team 3663 Cedar Park Robotics from Washington, and Team 4476 W.A.F.F.L.E.S. from Ontario, WildStang made it to Round 3 of Elimination matches after defeating Alliance 1. The captain and first pick of Alliance 1 were two of the top five highest scoring robots in the world. The 2023 Archimedes division is considered one of the most difficult divisions in FRC Champs history, with five of the top ten highest scoring teams in the world, including 111 WildStang, being randomly sorted into the same one of eight possible divisions.
“I think it went pretty well, the competition was a lot of fun and was very competitive. There were tons of impressive teams and robots there,” said RMHS Junior Calvin Butler.
The winning alliance of World Champs was comprised of Team 1323 Madtown Robotics and Team 4414 High Tide from California, Team 4096 Ctrl-Z from Champaign, Illinois, and backup robot Team 2609 BeaverworX from Ontario. WildStang has mentors who were once mentors for 4096 while at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and has current members planning to mentor for 4096 when they attend, so WildStang was very proud of a Ctrl-Z victory.
RMHS alum and current WildStang Robotics mentor Eric Tornabene said, “This was probably the most impactful championship I’ve been to as a part of the WildStang program. I’m blown away by the efforts of the students on the team, and they continue to impress me with their drive, passion, and resourcefulness year after year. WildStang may not have won, but the team performed strong all season, and had fun doing it. And that’s really all I can ask for.”