Add another state tournament appearance to the list for Becker High School, as FRC 4607 (C.I.S.) performed well enough at the Duluth Regional March 5 to earn a spot at the MSHSL state robotics tournament.  The team has been in existence for just ten years, but has earned a reputation as one of the elite teams in Minnesota and across the entire FRC competition circuit.

“It truly is a testament to the students - it is incredible to see their performance,” Head Coach Alex Jurek said. “I am very proud of this team.”

C.I.S. went 8-1 during the qualification matches to earn second place entering the final draft selection, where they joined forces with a pair of top teams to form the #2 alliance.

“At the end of qualifications we were ranked second out of 58 teams and became alliance captains for the first time in team history,” said the team’s marketing department. “We picked team 876 Thunder Robotics out of Hatton-Northwood, North Dakota, for first pick and for second pick, we picked team 2239, The Technocrats out of Hopkins, Minnesota.”

The trio of heavyweights won both quarterfinal matches, 90-60 and 74-65, to make it to the semifinals. In those matches, Becker’s alliance lost the first match, 74-54, but bounced back for a 76-61 win in the second match. In the tiebreaker, Becker’s group prevailed 67-53 to make it to the finals.

“In the finals, we played a very tough alliance and lost both matches, 85-49 and 99-65,” the marketing department added.  “Overall we are very excited to be competing, and working to improve our robot for the next two regionals.”

Becker will next compete in Grand Forks, followed by a trip to the Lacrosse, Wisconsin regional.

“We performed great at Duluth, we are preparing to win at Grand Forks,” team member John Nielsen commented.

This year’s game has multiple scoring avenues, as is usual with the FRC challenge. One of the ways to score points is a four bar climbing structure, while there are also two different goals in a central hub where balls can be scored. As usual, the matches start with an autonomous period, where computer programming performed by team members controls the robot instead of the human drivers.

“We’re currently improving so we can crush it at our next regional,” C.I.S. member Eli Bring said.

According to the team’s strategy squadron, C.I.S. is focusing on the climbing aspect of the game, as well as the autonomous programming.  Other facts that figured into this season’s plans were to keep the robot simple and easily serviceable.

In-match strategy is determined by the alliance member partners and opponents.

“It was a lot of fun, and good to be back in person,” team member Emilia Hansen stated, noting that last season’s events were held virtually.

“The entire thing was a great experience,” added marketing member Kayla Meyer.

Team members for this season’s squad include Matty B, Haiden Berrios, Noah Bloch, Eli Bring, Anthony Guck, Hayden Hall, Emilia Hansen, Greg Headley, Makayla Hoefs, Helen Jiang, Jakob Johnson, Landon Jurek, Joseph Kampa, Noelle Kempin, Lizzy Kluge, Kayla Gruenes, Saul Kortmansky, Collin Lietha, Lucas Bribers, Vincent Martin, Nash Super, Kayla Meyer, Timothy Middleton, John Nielsen, Cameron Northenscold, Adam Sura, Aliyah Szabla, Michael Thielen, Preston Thielen, Zach Ward, Isaac Wentland, Trenton Woolhouse, and Abby Stich.

Coaches include Alex Jurek, John Stich and Joe Kurhaetz, while mentors for this year’s team are: Ryan Swanson, Logan Steffen, Corey Applegate, Jim Cota, Katy Cota, Todd Kruse, Grant Silewski, Eric McCalla, Kris Fischbach, Matt Caden, Jordan Kortmansky, Katie Meyer, Ben Fischbach, Blake Soenneker and Evan Schmidt.