Becker High School’s robotics team, FRC 4607, C.I.S. has been working hard during the last month to prepare for their first regional competition this weekend, the Grand Forks Regional, held in Grand Forks, ND.

Most recently, this year’s Chairman’s presenters have been practicing and perfecting their presentation. Monday, five community supporters came to the school to critique the presentation and provide advice.

“I’m excited,” said presenter Ally Gruenes. “We have a strong team and I’m confident in our ability to be successful at this regional.” 

Presenter Keegan Murphy echoed his sentiments, saying the team is excited, prepared, and ready.

“This regional will be completely different for us,” said Tristin Emholtz, the team’s third presenter. “It’s a blank slate and we’ll most likely be competing against different teams than in the past.”

Two weeks ago, FRC 4607 attended the Week Zero events at Irondale High School and Eden Prairie High School, where the drive team drove their robot on the 2020 game field for the first time.

Due to the team’s experiences at the events, Build and Engineering spent time working on the robot’s design flaws and bugs that were found with the hopper and intake, and Programming got the hopper and indexer working with one button, as well as the flywheel and basic autonomous.

Every other department on the team has been busy, including Electrical rewiring most of the robot due to the new hopper, Business working on documentation, Media on the robot review and new podcasts, Marketing on promotional giveaways, and Safety on completing the team’s safety binder.

“We’ve done a really good job paying attention to the little details, said Assistant Coach Mark Kolbinger. “There’s so many of them that it’s a hard thing to do.”

Last Saturday, FRC 4607 participated in the Becker Business Expo and Craft Fair. Throughout the event team members took shifts at their booth to explain the concept of FIRST Robotics to the community and took the opportunity for their Chairman’s presenters to practice for this weekend’s regional competition in Grand Forks.

The team was also at the Sportsman’s Banquet later that day. 

One of FRC 4607’s main challenges this year is competing in two different regionals with the goal of winning a fifth Chairman’s Award, which is why they chose to compete in North Dakota this year. They’ve won four of the awards in four years, an accomplishment that had never been achieved in the past. 

“As our team has grown, we want to expand our competitiveness,” said Kolbinger. “North Dakota and Wisconsin were the next logical places for us to go and put our skills up against theirs.”

Details of their regional will be featured in next week’s Citizen-Tribune. 

FRC 4607, C.I.S. will be heading to LaCrosse, WI, for their next competition at the beginning of April.