The Cordova High School Robotics Team has advanced to state competition and will face over 30 teams from around the state Saturday, Feb. 17 at the University of Alaska Anchorage sports complex.
During the First Tech Challenge MatSu Qualifier at the MatSu Career and Technical High School in Wasilla on Jan. 13, the Cordova team received the exclusive judges award of a 3D engraved plaque for team innovation and community outreach, citing an electronic Easter egg that the team sent to astronauts at the international space station last year. The egg displayed the Cordova High School and the FIRST robotics logo.
Nine members of the Wolverines team attended the FIRST Tech Challenge MatSu Qualifier in Wasilla on Jan. 13. The largest team in attendance, they competed against 17 other teams from the Anchorage and Mat-Su area.
Prior to the competition, the Wolverines completed robot inspections to verify that the size, safety and compliance of the robots met guidelines. Then the team attended a judging session as the competition began, the Wolverines were very excited about flexing the new features of the robot version two and began collaborating with their paired partner alliances.
The team spent a considerable amount of time during Christmas break working on the new robot and practicing driving to prepare for the matches. As the matches began, the Wolverines realized their robot and team were the mature side of each partner alliance having a very solid autonomous scoring and visible differences on main match scoring. Much to the team’s dismay though, the alliances lost match after match by just a few points.
The Wolverines realized that their driving practice and the reality of four robots in the playing field had a different dynamic and had to adjust tactics to improve scoring. While each match seemed to get better they only won one of six matches. The way the scoring works each team gets points for the partner alliance win and the losing team’s score, so while the Wolverines ranked 15th of 18th on wins they had the second highest point ranking due to their high scoring autonomous mode. The top four teams for wins pick partner alliances to move into semi-finals. The Eagle River Nuclear Wolves picked Cordova to move into the semi-finals.
Jeremiah Beckett is the Cordova High School Tech Club advisor.
