I will never forget my first time stepping onto Newton Field. I was our driver and was purely humbled by being able to be here and get to drive at St. Louis. Stepping onto the field was especially significant for me. This year, because we assumed each competition we attended would be our last, I never knew when it would be my last time on a real FRC field. I guess it was only fitting then that our first match was one of the worst we had ever played. It was time to come back to reality. We were here, but it was time to buckle down and do what we came to do: compete.
Over the next several days we rose through the rankings one match at a time, each one with seemingly a whole new set of challenges, rewards, and struggles. The low point of the qualifications came before they even started when we realized we were missing a key robot component and had to improvise a spare that we would then use throughout the competition. The high point was when we randomly got paired with the team that would go on to be the world champion and nearly broke the world record in number of points scored in a match. In the end, we made it to the top eight and held onto 6th.
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| The Team Driving “Not Yet” |
At alliance selection, we were hoping to be picked by a higher team but were also prepared to be Alliance Captains ourselves. The latter ended up being the case and we went into the quarterfinals of the Newton Division as the fifth Alliance Captain. We moved a condensed version of our pit into the Dome and prepared to see if we could go all the way. After a few matches in the quarterfinals, it was clear we would not move to the semis.
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| “Not Yet” in Action |
Our best few matches were those last few, but we were simply not as good as the competition. And I don’t think a single person on our team, or on our Alliance Partner teams, was unhappy with how those last few matches turned out. We played our best and that was all that mattered. If you missed out on Part 3 “The Fields of Science” Check it Out!