This past Saturday (Nov 7th) the FIRST Robotics Team 836, the RoboBees competed in Newport News, Virginia at the Rumble in the Roads off-season event. The event was a mimic of a 2015 Regional of Recycle Rush. Each robot joined an alliance that took turns stacking as many totes and recycling can towers as they could in a race against the clock.
The 9 teams that scored the highest average of points at the end of four qualifying matches became the alliance captains and were allowed to pick up to two robots to ally with for the semi-finals later that day. Even though The RoboBees were seated fifth at the end of qualifying matches, they were picked to ally with the 1st place team, 2363 Triple-Helix. However, since a team dropped out during the qualifying matches, the top two alliance captains were only allowed to pick a single ally for the semi-finals.
At the end of the day, The RoboBees and Triple-Helix ended in 5th out of 9 alliances that competed. This was the first competition for a new drive team, so at the end of the day The RoboBees went home with a moral victory and spirits held high looking forward to division events in the upcoming 2016 season.