A not so very long time ago, Team 3238 began their adventure through the steampunk world entitled “FIRST Steamworks”. We begin our tale with the release of the theme of the 2017 FRC game – steampunk. As soon as the theme was released, the team began planning and building the pit.
Before the build season was to begin, Team 3238 helped represent Anacortes FIRST Robotics at the Winter Wonderland Walk, where we made donuts and chatted with the community.
As a last minute reprieve before build season, the team wanted to go bowling, but ended up going to see the movie Sing at the local movie theater, Anacortes Cinema.
Kickoff occurred on a pleasant, but overcast, Saturday in January – everyone got to the high school at 7:00 am in order to watch the live Kickoff and stayed until 5:00 pm discussing game play and strategy.
When Build Season drew to a close, the team felt like they had used their time efficiently to build the best possible robot that they could in the time allotted. Below is a picture of the Chief Systems Engineer, Program Manager, and Shooter Subsystem Leader bagging up the robot for shipment to their first District Event.
At the West Valley District Event, the team put their best foot forward by being finalists and getting both the Team Spirit and Safety Awards.
Team 3238 performed even better at the Mount Vernon District Event, winning the event and getting the Safety and Imagery Awards.
Going into the Pacific Northwest District Championship in Cheney, WA, the Cyborg Ferrets felt reasonably confident about their robot. This confidence proved to be justified, as we finished first in the event – and first in the PNW District overall – and received the Finalist Award and the Quality Award.
After the team’s smashing success in the District Events, everyone was extremely excited to see how we would do at the Houston Championship. We ended up the Semi-Finalist Alliance Captains of the Carver division after placing 6th out of 67 teams, and we got the Safety Hard Hats, meaning that our safety program was judged to be in the top three safety programs of the combined Carver-Newton division.
Even though competition season had ended, the team wasn’t finished with their adventure quite yet – there was still the Annual Waterfront Festival. The FRC team attended the event along with the FTC, FLL, and FLL Jr. teams in Anacortes in order to spread the message of FIRST to people of all ages in the community.
And even now, the adventure has not quite come to a close – the team will be attending the Anacortes 4th of July Parade, annual Kids Are Best Fest, Anacortes STEM Camp, two offseason competitions – Girl’s Gen and Peak Performance, Anacortes Open Streets, and the middle and high school Fee and Photo Days; we hope to help more people in Anacortes drink the FIRST Kool-Aid.
Thank you to everyone who helped out and contributed to this season’s success – the students, the parents, the wonderful mentors, the awesome sponsors, and all of the people who donated some of their money or time to help the program. In October, the next adventure awaits!