by Lyra Summers
The Chesapeake Robotics Icebreaker (CRI) was our first 2024 off-season competition. On Saturday, September 28th, 2024, 28 teams from across Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania gathered at Hayfield Secondary School in Alexandria, Virginia for a day of fun and excitement at the inaugural CRI.
An off-season event is an event where teams can learn from each other before the season officially starts through competition and cooperation. Off-season events help prepare the new students for what they might need to expect from future events in the upcoming season. During the Chesapeake Robotics Icebreaker, we focused on doing our best and having fun. This involved the mechanical team, the drive team, and everyone else doing their part.
The mechanical team worked on the robot during the breaks when we were not competing. The drive team drove the robot during the matches. Some students scouted for potential alliances. Meanwhile, the other students who were not in the pits helped in separate ways such as taking pictures and observing. This all involved everyone communicating. For instance, the drive team would have to communicate about issues with the robot. The event was divided into two halves, the qualifications, and the eliminations. After the qualifications, the teams would pick an alliance and compete with them for the rest of the competition.
Going into alliance selection, the team chose Team 1731 – Fresta Valley Robotics Club as our first pick. In coordination with 1731, Team 9072 – TigerBots rounded out our alliance. During eliminations, we swapped out 9072 with Team 8230 – KoiBots. It was a pleasure to once again work with these teams that we have worked with in the past.
This event was great because of the experience we gained from it. Our drive team learned a lot from this event since everyone except for one member of the drive team was completely new. During the competition, our auto had some issues despite these issues as well as a lack of preparation time the drive team still managed to perform well and improve from this as a result.
Teamwork between everyone resulted in us winning the competition due to having a good score. Our score in the qualification matches was 10 wins and 1 loss. And an overall ranking score of 3.17.
