Ultimate Ascent 2013

FRC Team 3313 Mechatronics entered the 2012-2013 season with 2 main goals:

• make it to the elimination rounds during our regional
• submit the Chairman’s Award

Our team worked to accomplish these goals by meeting, promoting, fundraising, and learning throughout the fall. We built a float and walked in Jefferson High School’s Homecoming Parade. We also worked closely with sponsors by going to monthly meetings and touring their facilities. They were so encouraged by our progress that they sent some of our team members to the Pack Expo in Chicago, IL in October. Team 3313 also used the fall to publicize and raise money through innovative fundraisers. We bagged groceries at Elden’s, bussed Pizza Ranch tables, ran a Haunted Barn, and shaved our head coach’s beard. We refined our robot skills by making major changes to our 2012 robot in preparation for the Minne-Regional. We performed really well there and even picked our own Alliance! Mechatronics gained even more skills by attending and presenting at numerous FIRST events such as Robotapalooza, Minne-Regional, and SPLASH Training.

After working for 4 months straight, FRC 3313 was SO READY for the Kickoff. We helped set up the event and even ran some presentations after. The game for 2013 was revealed to us and it is Ultimate Ascent! Each team is required to shoot Frisbees and then hang or climb from a metal jungle gym. It is a very exciting game!

Team 3313 started the Build Season by constructing the Field Elements and then splitting into two prototype teams. One team worked on a shooter and another on a climber. The shooter prototypes made WAY more progress (and we liked that strategy) so we went with those. We made a lot of progress and continually added videos to our YouTube channel. A big improvement this year was sticking to simple designs that worked. Mechatornics was also able to build two working robots at the same time (prototype and competition). Our competition robot looks FANTASTIC. We cannot wait to compete!!

While building the robot, we accomplished one of our main team goals, we submitted for Chairman’s. This was an arduous task for Jade and Kacy, our main Awards team. Not only did they complete the Chairman’s Award Essay and Executive Summary, they even found time to submit for the Entrepreneurship Award, Woodie Flowers, and Dean’s List. Holy smokes! They’re awesome. The work and stress was really tough sometimes but doing these awards is a HUGE step forward for our team. (See our Resources Tab for copies of all of these)

Team 3313 Mechatronics never stops doing community outreach, even during Build Season! We sold Domino’s Pizza at the Ice Fishing Challenge to raise money. Visiting both an elementary school and an assisted living home in the same day was fun. For a little redemption from last year, we performed at the halftime show of a basketball game and somehow found time for an Open House. Our PR never stopped either. We met with our sponsors and went on the radio for an hour long interview (twice). We are continually tweeting, tumbled, and youtubed (are those verbs?).

It has been an exciting year so far and we simply CANNOT WAIT to compete at the 10,000 Lakes Regional.

Our Regional Competition

This year, was our best regional competition in all of our four years as a team. We preformed the best we had since the team began. We were ranked 1st most of the qualifing day, going undefeated.  Towards the end, we ended up becoming the 3rd alliance to pick our teammates. Although we did not make it beyond to Championships, we still made major progress since our previous year. Not only did we preform well in our regional, but also we won two awards as well! We were graciously awarded the Team Spirit Award and the Gracious Professinalism Award.


Minnesota State High School League Competition

After our regional competition, we were ranked 3rd out of 180 teams in Minnesota, therefore qualifing to attend the Minnesota State Competition. Although we did not preform as well as we had at our regional competition we still had the opportunity to work with the best thirty teams in the state. We had many malfunctions, but we were able to pull through with a final ranking of 19th at state. This was the last offical FRC event for the year, and we are now patiently waiting for the game of 2014. Water games, anyone?