After many long weeks of planning, building, preparing, and competing at district events, Team 238 Crusaders qualified to compete at the FIRST World Championship for the sixth time in our team’s history! This year, and for the next three years, the World Championship was in Detroit, Michigan. The event occurred April 25th to April 28th, 2018, with the participation of over 400 FRC teams from around the world.

TESLA DIVISION

At the Championship, there were 6 different divisions of competition with teams randomly placed in each division. 238 was placed in the Tesla division as one of 67 teams. In our division, we were one of the few teams representing New Hampshire, along with 319 Big Bad Bob from Alton, 1073 The Force Team from Hollis and 1729 Team “Inconceivable!” from New Ipswich. Other teams from NH competing at the Championship were 5813 Morpheus from Concord in the Curie division and 1519 Mechanical Mayhem from Milford in the Darwin division.

COMPETITION

In our first qualification match our robot was not able to compete because of an electrical problem that caused communication issues between the main controller and all of the motor controllers. The electrical team was able to replace the controller that failed, but not in time to make the match. The rest of our matches went well until, on the second day of competition, our elevator broke after a hit on the field. A piece of the elevator had gotten pushed back two inches and it needed to be moved back into place so that the elevator could work again.

Team 238 finished qualifications with a record of 5-5-0 and ranked 47. We were the second pick for the 4th seed alliance. We were in an alliance with alliance captain 340 Greater Rochester Robotics, 319 Big Bad Bob, and 5980 East Grand Rapids Robotics. With this alliance, we advanced through the quarterfinals and were able to finish playoffs as semi-finalists, which is the furthest in our team’s history.

Scouting went really well for our team at Championship. We followed a schedule to collect our match data so all team members participated and also had the chance to check out the sights at the competition including all the teams from around the world and conference sessions about topics such as leadership and other best practices for team activities.

GIVING BACK TO FIRST

INNOVATION FAIRE

We also went to the Championship Innovation Faire the day we arrived in Detroit and met with FIRST sponsors and scholarship providers, enjoyed their booth activities and built structures with LEGOs. There was even a booth that had a virtual reality simulation of a robot that could beat almost anyone in tic-tac-toe. Another booth had new surgical equipment for heart surgeons to access valves in the heart and fix tears with a clip without putting the life of the patient in danger. There was also a FIRST robotics version of The Game of Life where we could start by choosing to make new friends or win the Chairman's award.

MORE THAN ROBOTS

Museum

On the day we arrived in Detroit, we visited the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation. We started off watching two videos about the history of Henry Ford, the company, and the Rouge. Then the whole team toured the area together, looking at cars like the Model T and the Ford Thunderbird. We finished the trip by looking at the processes of creating a car.

Zoo

After the Championship, instead of rushing to leave Detroit, we planned to take a day to relax and went to the Detroit Zoo. Everyone split into small groups and enjoyed watching the animals. We had a good day to relax and be able to laugh, have fun with different people you don’t have time to talk to on the team, see really cute animals.