By 2130 Alpha +
On March 26th the Alpha + Robotics team headed out to Nampa, Idaho to compete in the FIRST robotics Idaho Regional Competition at the Ford Center. The competition consisted of 51 teams from Canada, China, California, Hawaii, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and Idaho.
Alpha + ended the event in 18th out of the 51 teams. The team, their mentors and family and friends had a great time and enjoyed the intense competition.
The drive team was made up of Riley Thompson acting as coach, Matthew McCabe was in the role of operator, Jay Newhouse was in the role of driver, Joseph Meyer was the team’s technician, and the human player role for the team was shared by Tiana Fleck and Alec Maas. Jace Thompson was the PIT lead and was in charge of the PIT area which consists of a 10X10 foot space that each team is given where they keep their tools and everything that they need to keep their BOT running and where they make any repairs that may be needed along the way.
Sadie Newhouse served the role as safety captain and was in charge of making sure that the team and everyone who they interacted with stayed safe by wearing safety goggles, keeping long hair up and inspecting work areas to maintain that all safety related aspects of the competition are met. Wyatt Phebus and Jack Marshal took charge of scouting the other teams so that the team always knew what the strengths and weaknesses of the other teams were. AJ Giallanza also helped in the PITS and jumped in any role that was needed throughout the competition.
While there, Matthew McCabe and Joseph Meyer were also interviewed by a panel of judges for their nominations for the Dean’s List.
The team had 9 qualifying matches where they took home five wins with their robot, ‘Sea SALT’. This was the name that the team decided on since the theme of this year’s game was ‘Reefscape’, and to pay homage to a robot of past years from the team that was named SALT, for Super Awesome Lifty Thing.
Sea SALT utilizes an elevator type device to raise an arm up to various heights to be able to place the coral game pieces onto the reef. The robot also has a rotating arm that is able to climb within the cage portion of the field set up.
The team, mentors and supporters were very happy with the results of this year’s competition. They worked through a few programming bugs and were able to have a successful functioning robot competing on the field. They are thankful that Bonners Ferry High School Spanish Teacher Gabby Solum and her family stopped by the Ford Center to watch a couple rounds of competition.
As always, we appreciate the support of our school district, mentors, sponsors, parents and community. Without all of them this would not be possible.
We would like to invite you to attend our Open house Friday 2nd at 6pm. Open house is open to anyone who would like to come by. This will take place at the BOT cave which is on the backside of BCMS.
Please feel free to reach out to us on Facebook at FIRST team 2130 or by email at 2130alphaplus@gmail.com with any questions.
The team is currently meeting Tuesday and Thursday after school until 6 if you have a student age 14-18 interested in stopping by and checking out the team.