2011- I was barely involved with the team, but I had one part on our mini-bot that I came up with. Our mini-bot was top-notch at our first regional that year and a large part of the reason we ended up in the finals.
2012- At our first event, the team had a miserable showing as our shooter wasn't working and our bridge lowering mechanism wasn't functioning. I had designed the bridge lowing mechanism and I was distraught as to why it didn't work!
I came to find out that the one I designed wasn't on the robot for some reason, and when it was attached at our second event, we ended up winning the event as a feeder bot- that required crossing the bridge every match
2013- We finally had a robot that worked by stop-build day!
We finally got to partner with our friends at 2791 for eliminations!
We seeded second and first at our two regionals and went undefeated at the second!
We partnered with our friends on 195 for the second year in a row in eliminations.
We ended up in eliminations at championships!
We beat 987 is a close qualification match at championships!
We posted the highest losing score in the world when we lost in quarterfinals at championships- a feat that would last for 10 minutes, until the alliance that beat us would lose to the eventual world finalists.
The robot barely broke down at all throughout the season!
We were invited to IRI!
2014- We had record numbers of freshmen join the team.
Our student engagement was better than it ever has been, and anyone that showed up to the meetings felt like they had work to do, despite our large team size.
At our first regional, we were able to partner with our friends from 229 for the first time, and bring them to championships!
In finals of our first regional, one of our bearings in the drivetrain shattered, rending us with a 5-wheel drive for the final match. Despite this, with some quick work from our programmer, our two-ball auto worked perfectly AND we worked perfectly for teleop.
As human player, my last second inbound won us one of our eliminations matches.
At our second event, we were faced with a triple-header of qualification matches and qualification match replays Saturday morning. We survived those three matches, almost winning the third one, even though it was our toughest match of the day.
The strategies we came up with at both our events worked beautifully.
The passing method I came up with at our second event became a standard of passing in Archimedes (the "give and go").
We almost beat 2056 and 548 in the same qualification match- playing our strategy perfectly, despite the fact that their robots were better. That included a catch!
A catch won us a qualification match at championships!
We got to once again play with our friends on 195 in eliminations, this time at Championships.
We once again made eliminations at championships, and lost a very close set of matches to the divisional finalists.
I've had a crazy four years on The Rocketeers, earning more banners in my four year period on the team than my team has ever earned in any other four year period.
We've been through ups and downs (lots of downs), and we've learned quite a lot.
I'm extremely sad to go, but I hope the next generation of Rocketeers learns from our mistakes and our triumphs and improves even more for next year.
I'll be seeing some of you out in Rochester next year!