Spartan Robotics FRC Team 971 Share their Story from Sacramento Regional

When students and mentors from Spartan Robotics send us a great story, we need to celebrate their achievements in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) with our SolidWorks community. Thank you FRC Team 971 for using SolidWorks, showing us the intensity of competition, and achieving so much.

Mountain View High School (MVHS), Spartan Robotics, FRC Team 971 went undefeated and won the Sacramento Regional this past weekend. It was a great weekend and not just because we won. A competition is always a success when the team and robot work the way you hope they would.

From Inspection to Match Play

The team spent part of the practice day on Thursday getting things fixed up and the robot through inspection. Some years that would take the whole day, but this year the robot and drive team got out and ran some practice matches in the afternoon. Friday morning there were a few loose electrical connections that fortunately didn’t cost the team any matches. We had some great match play with only a few glitches that were fixed as soon as they showed up. We won all six of the Friday matches.

Qualify and the Alliance

By Saturday, our robot, Mammoth, was performing great and was fun to watch. At the end of the qualifying rounds, 971 was the only undefeated team and therefore the alliance captain for the #1 alliance. Our scouting team had been hard at work and selected the #2 ranked team, 1678 – the Citrus Circuits from Davis. When a team is ranked #1, the first pick is usually pretty straightforward. It’s the second pick that is hard and where good scouting data is helpful. Our alliance picked team 766, the MA Bears from Menlo Atherton. Their robot complimented the other two perfectly and they were great to work with.

The defense this year has been a bit intense since there is only one game piece in play at a time and during our second quarterfinal elimination match our robot, Mammoth, got tipped over (the other team got a penalty) and we thought the team was done for the match. Almost immediately, the drive team performed a unplanned and definitely unpracticed maneuver and righted Mammoth with the intake arm. Mammoth was back scoring points. It was definitely an amazing performance. We had a great alliance that worked together really well. Team 766 would intake the ball and pass it to Team 1678 who would shoot the ball over the truss for 10 points and Mammoth would pick it up and score. Passing the ball between the three partners was worth a lot of points and it was great we could do it so well.

Videos of the Event: Link to a Playlist with 6 matches

Supporting Others

It was also great that Team 114 from Los Altos High School had a very respectable performance at the competition. They ended up ranked #6 in the qualifying matches and captain of the #4 alliance. We had one qualifying match that we played with 114 and even though our other alliance partner died during the match, 971 and 114 won the match together decisively. In the video list above, it is Match #58.

It’s all About Teamwork

Winning the competition was exciting but it was also exciting to see the team work together. We had 30 students travel to Davis for the competition. This is a record. The scouting team was so excited that there were enough students to take good data in the stands. The students in our pit crew worked hard to find all the problems and get them fixed as soon as they showed up. Since this is a game of strategy, there was also close communication between scouting and the drive team. Everyone had a job and did it well. We even got a Judges Choice award for our team and robot design.

Luke, our team spokesman, thank you to everyone for your support of the team. We will be competing again at the Silicon Valley Regional on April 4th and 5th in the Event Center at San Jose State. If you are in the area, please come and join us. It should be an exciting time.

And from the SolidWorks EDU team, thank you mentor, Wyn Schuh, for sharing with the SolidWorks Community. Marie

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Marie Planchard

Senior Director, Early Engagement, 3DEXPERIENCE Works at Dassault Systemes

Marie Planchard is an education and engineering advocate. As Senior Director of Education & Early Engagement, SOLIDWORKS, she is responsible for global development of content and social outreach for the 3DEXPERIENCE Works products across all levels of learning including educational institutions, Fab Labs, and entrepreneurship.