DEWBOT XIII FRC Championship

This was our 7^th consecutive FRC Championship, meaning that the team has participated in all of the St. Louis FRC Championships. I like this venue and will miss it. Fortunately, I like the people much more than the venue and the people will be moving on to Detroit next year.

Our qualification performance was mixed. We've improved our gear running to five gears per match. On the other hand, autonomous gear placement consistently failed. Our shooter performed better than in past competitions, but not good enough for us to make a living with it; a 2.5 ball/s average rate just doesn't cut it here. Our gearing change (48:1 to 25:1) provided faster, reliable climbing, which turned out to be useful. We ended qualification matches in 33^th place (of 66) in Archimedes Sub-Division with a 6-4-0 record.

Despite our middle of the pack ranking, we were the 2^nd pick of the 1^st alliance comprising 1058 (PVC Pirates - Captain - Londonderry NH), 67 (The HOT Team - Highland MI) and 2137 (T.O.R.C. - Oxford MI). Together, we won Archimedes Sub-Division and advanced to Einstein! Unfortunately, we didn't make it to the finals. From a historical perspective, the team has won at the (Sub-)Division level during three of the past five years ( 2013, 2014 & 2017); and finished as Sub-Division Finalist in 2015.

Braden connected us with event sponsor Bosch, who were very impressed with Sab-BOT-age's use of 3-d printed parts on DEWBOT XIII. We ended up doing a video for Bosch, who were promoting their Dremel 3-d printers. Good work Braden!

High Drama

Our first point of high drama was that Eric accidentally injured his foot the night before playoffs. He made it though two matches before the pain became overbearing. Eric went to the hospital and Josh G stepped up to drive on Einstein.

Our 2^nd high drama occurred during Archimedes finals. The 2^nd alliance (led by close friends FRC 225 TechFire) took the first match. We took the second. We then won the rubber match by a mere 2 points! Or so it seemed. There had been a 5 point penalty against our opponents during the match, that was determined to be due to a field fault. But this same field fault prevented one of our robots from climbing. What to do? What to do? We must replay the match, of course! Oh no! Fortunately, it turned out to be a 458 - 219 blow-away. On to Einstein.