Last weekend, our team took part in a 2 day competition called the North Shore District Event held in Reading, MA. We worked hard through the qualifications and eliminations, and ended up as the second highest ranked team.

While the drive team focused on the robot performance, the rest of the team scouted in the stands, as well as the pits. Scouting helps our team select the best alliance partners to work with during the process of eliminations. We were able to compare what all the different teams did and the ones that we could best work with. The team also scouted our own team so that we could see what we could improve on before our next competition.

Our ramp was only used twice in the competition. We used it once during practice matches and once during qualifications. During the practice match our partner's bot made it up the ramp but didn’t have enough weight to stay on and it slid off. During the qualification match the robot attempted to get on our ramp couldn’t make it on, instead they just drove on the platform and parked.

Throughout the weekend, we did very well in our matches. We were able to place second out of 40 teams, which made us an alliance captain. We then picked 2 robots that best complimented our robot. We worked together and were able to make it to the finals where we went up against the number one seed. We ended as the event finalist and we were proud of our playoff run.

The main objective of our pit is to efficiently work on our robot in between matches and ensure CATWOMAN is ready for her next match. We also use our pit to interact with people such as other teams, spectators, local politicians, sponsors, and event judges. We share about what our team and robot does with all these people. This is how the event judges determine what teams get awards. Woodie Flowers, the father of gracious professionalism, even stopped by to visit CATWOMAN.

Andromeda One’s Alien became friends with our team in 2017 and has cheered with us at every competition that we have been at with 4905, from District Champs all the way to Worlds in Saint Louis, Missouri.  At North Shore the alien put on one of our team shirts and cheered with our team. He always came over to our team and hung out with us while also cheering on our team.

Our team allied with team 125 NUTRONs and team 6731 Record Robotics going into the eliminations. We chose these teams because we felt they complimented how our robot functioned. Our drive teams also worked well together, making these matches exciting. These teams proved to work well with us as we went all the way to the finals. We loved working with these two teams.

We presented to the Chairman's judges for the second time at this event after making some adjustments to the script. Even though we did not win, we improved from our last presentation, and that is a great starting point.

The Quality Award sponsored by Motorola Solutions Foundation celebrates machine robustness in concept and fabrication. The winning team demonstrates these characteristics in many ways from planning through execution. Building the robot is only part of their success and the judges recognize them as a quality example to others. This is what the judges said about our team:

“From the production of its parts to their branding guidelines, this team advocates for attention to detail. Their black and yellow color theme is carried through every dimension of their work. Their professional-level quality system is something all teams should aspire to.”

North Shore was our second time receiving this award this season. We won this award because of our interactions with the judges, and our descriptions of our robot.

Giving Back to FIRST:

In order to give back to FIRST, we love helping at events. At this event, we helped tear down the field and pack it up. They were so grateful for our help because everything went faster.