On March 23rd, in a late-season snow and ice storm, The Green Machine headed south toward Cedar Falls, IA, to compete in the Iowa Regional. This was the first time a FIRST Robotics Competition regional event has been held in Iowa, and teams as far away as Brazil and China came to the University of Northern Iowa to compete. It was a tough competition, robot-wise, for the team. It seemed more problems popped up in every match! However, Team 1816 overall won the Gracious Professionalism award and an Honorable Mention for the Underwriters Laboratories Safety Award (also known as the UL Safety Hard Hat awards). In addition, two of our team members, Brandon and Allison, were selected to be Dean’s List Finalists. Although The Green Machine will not be competing at the FIRST World Championship, we’re very excited to send Brandon and Allison to St Louis to represent our team!
However, the competition season isn’t over for our Team just yet. Our Team’s performance at our first event, the Lake Superior Regional in Duluth, earned us enough points to be ranked 25th in the state – and we qualified for the 5th annual MSHSL – FIRST Robotics State Championship. We’re one of two teams to compete at the state tournament since its creation, and we look forward to playing FIRST Stronghold once more at the University of Minnesota’s Mariucci Arena on May 21st!