Conrad Qualifier

By Ethan, Charlotte, Karina, Janavi, Bhanaviya, Abhi, Arjun, Evan, and Justin

Task: Compete at the N. TX Conrad Qualifier

Right off of a mortifying experience at the Hendricks MS Scrimmage, in which we got the worst score at the tournament (and in the one match we did participate in, our robot broke) we walked in on shaky ground. In the week leading up to the tournament, Iron Reign worked hard, with 35 commits to the blog, and countless changes to our robot.

Inspection

Our robot fit well inside the sizing cube. However, we were warned for our rats' nest of wiring at the base of our robot, as well as the fact that our metal-frame base had sharp corners.

Presentation

We walked in, and started off out strong. Half of a good presentation is the energy, and we had more energy than some of our other presentations last year. Unfortunately, that energy petered out as we stuttered and tripped over ourselves. We got our information across, but not as well as we should have, and we didn't have enough time for questioning.

Robot Game

We didn't really have a working robot, but we tried our best. Unfortunately, our best wasn't great.

Match 1

We lost, 33-135. We deployed the wrong autonomous and couldn't drive - a total wash.

Match 6

We lost, 15-70. Our robot's linear slide seized up, bringing our robot outside of sizing limits, so we had to sit out the match as we hacksawed through our intake.

Match 11

We lost, 47-122. Our autonomous worked! (but our team marker didn't deploy).

Match 13

We lost, 65-196. Our robot didn't work, we just drove ourselves around aimlessly.

Match 15

We lost, 10-167. This time, none of our robots worked!

In summary, a disappointing result.

After-Judging and Awards Ceremony

While we thought we hadn't done well in judging, we were quickly rebuffed. A good measure of judging success is if the judges come back to talk to you, and this was no exception. We had five separate groups of judges come up to us and ask us about *every* component of our team, from business, to volunteering, to code, to design. While we thought we hadn't done well in judging, we were quickly rebuffed. A good measure of judging success is if the judges come back to talk to you, and this was no exception. We had five separate groups of judges come up to us and ask us about *every* component of our team, from business, to volunteering, to code, to design.

In the ceremony, every single member of SEM Robotics waited. Iron Star had been the 4th alliance captain; Iron Core had demonstrated gracious professionalism; Iron Reign had multiple in-depth discussions with judges; Imperial had an exceptional journal. We watched each team get nominated for awards, but only that, and fall short. In particular, Iron Reign was nominated for every award but Innovate. Then came Inspire. We heard two names echo off as nominations; neither of them SEM Robotics teams. Finally, a speech flew across the arena as Iron Reign stood for their Inspire Award.

Next Steps

Even though we won Inspire, we have a long way to go. We are going to compete at at least one more tournament, and don't want to completely embarrass ourselves.