This past week, FRC Team 1816 – “The Green Machine” attended the Detroit World Championship event. The World Championship for FIRST Robotics is an event that a team has to pre-qualify for to compete. In this 2019 season, The Green Machine pre-qualified based on several factors:
- In 2018, we finished as one of three World Chairman’s Award Finalists, which recognizes teams for their continued STEM Outreach work in their community, state, and nation, and recognizes the change and effects the team has.
- In 2019, we won a Regional competition with our robot for the first time in 14 years! This was a group effort that really kept the build team motivated for a great performance at champs.
- On top of that, The Green Machine took home the Regional Chairman’s award at an early March event, the Lake Superior Regional, Duluth, MN.
This triple qualification for World Champs had raised our hopes high as we arrived at the Cobo Center on Thursday morning April 25 to begin qualification matches. At the end of the day on Friday, we were ranked 18th prior going into alliance selection. During alliance selection, the Top 8 finishers get to pick an alliance to compete in the playoff matches for the division title and the chance to compete on the Einstein field. Fellow Minnesota FRC Team 5172-Gators, Greenbush, chose us as their second pick. We went all the way to Division Finals as an alliance, which is the furthest we have ever gone at the championship since we finished as division finalists in the 2007 World Championship.
We are also proud to say that we were awarded the World Championship Chairman’s Award, which is the highest possible award a FIRST Robotics Competition team can receive in recognition of continuous progress in STEM outreach and culture change in how our community regards STEM. We are the first Minnesota FIRST Robotics team to achieve this award, and we will be recognized for this achievement by being inducted into the FIRST Hall of Fame in April 2020.
We are now organizing opportunities with other teams where we can share our STEM outreach process and approaches in hopes of getting more Minnesota teams recognized for their work. If you’d like to learn more, please contact us!
Overall, the 2019 season has been incredibly successful and it could not have been so successful without the help of every team member mentor and sponsor, thank you also to the parents who helped with meals and outreach events, this award is for all of you.
– Oscar W.