Last weekend, 4607 attended their 2nd competition, the Medtronic Foundation Regional in Minneapolis.

 

Thursday, the PIT crew and drive team were getting settled to start a day of practice matches. 

 

C.I.S. competed in three practice matches to help identify minor issues that may occur with the robot. 

 

This prepares the team for the qualification matches that take place the following day. 

 

Friday, was a very eventful day with C.I.S. competing in seven qualifying matches. 

 

This put the team at a ranking of 19 out of 60 at the end of the first day. The high ranking brought a lot of attention and scouts to 4607’s pit, where many teams were asking questions to prepare for alliance selections. 

 

Saturday the team competed in their final 2 qualification matches before heading into the Regional’s alliance selection. 

 

During alliance selections, C.I.S. was picked by the 2nd ranked alliance captain to compete in the elimination rounds. 

 

During the elimination rounds, C.I.S. won the first match of quarterfinals with a score of 452-171. 

 

They took the second match with a 456-324 win, qualifying the alliance for a tough semifinal match-up. 

 

In the semifinals, C.I.S. and their alliance partners were eliminated with the match scores of: 334-382 and 288-294. 

 

Although heartbreaking, the team remained upbeat and excited during the finals match while their fellow hub team, the Granite City Gearheads out of St. Cloud, competed for a Regional win. 

 

During the award ceremony, C.I.S. was awarded the UL Safety Award for the second time this season. 

 

The second award C.I.S. took home was the Engineering Inspiration Award. Due to their Chairman’s Award win at Duluth, this award was top of the list for 4607. 

 

Receiving this award gives the team a $5,000 grant that allows them to pay the registration fee of the World Competition. C.I.S. has put in a lot of work throughout the year and it has clearly shown through all the success the team is having. 

 

Now that the Regionals are completed, C.I.S. is preparing for Worlds at the end of April and the MN State High School League competition in mid-May. 

 

To prepare for the World Competition, the programming squad will be perfecting the pathfinder functions and replacing the boom motors/gems with a linear actuator controlled via potentiometer feedback. 

 

 The C.I.S. engineering department is currently taking its learnings from the first two regionals and planning to re-engineer the boom arm assembly that lifts the cubes during competition. The current gearboxes that lift the boom arm are unreliable and becoming obsolete. 

 

They have had multiple failures due to high torque and are a risk to failures during the upcoming competitions. 

 

The gearboxes will be replaced with an improved boom lifting mechanism using linear actuators, which will significantly improve the reliability of the up/down movements of the arm. 

 

When the team travels to Detroit to participate in the World Robotics Competition, branding is a top priority of 4607. 

 

With six different fields and roughly 450 teams in attendance, it’s a challenge to ensure that the 4607 name and brand is recognized by the FRC community. 

 

The branding team will be counting buttons and determining inventory of promotional items to ensure they're keeping traffic steady by the PIT area.