It’s here at last. The Green Machine is heading to St. Louis, MO for World Championships! Taking place April 26 – 28 at the Edward Jones Dome, this competition by far is the largest of any competition we have been to this year. There will be more than 400 FIRST Robotics teams at this competition, not just from the U.S. but from Mexico, Australia and Israel. FIRST Team 1816 is very excited to attend this year’s event as the Chairman’s Award winner from the North Star Regional. Robot-wise, we anticipate not having to make many significant changes. Maybe something minimal, like adding lights to make Zephyr even more shiny and unique. We will be changing the treads in the back, but leaving the non-driven wheels in the front. Some programming adjustments will be made to include vision tracking, giving us an even better, more accurate way to make allthe shots.
Championships isn’t all work, of course. We plan to see The Gateway Arch, visit with team alumni now attending college at Washington University, and we’ll tour a local museum or two. We’ll be ‘tweeting’ updates from St. Louis, and NASA will host webcasts of all the action on all four fields (1816 is on Archimedes, while friends from our fellow FIRST Minnesota teams are appearing on Curie, Galileo and Newton). One of our Edina FTC Teams, Team 2887-The Bucket Brigade, will also be competing at Championships with their robot, Howard. One of their team members was selected to appear during the “2012 FIRST has Talent” show, which happens on Saturday night after all of the competitions are done. We hear that the dancing involved shouldn’t be missed! Stay tuned to 1816 for updates on all the action in St. Louis. Good luck to every team competing at this year’s 2012 FIRSTChampionships!