Last weekend, March 29 to April 1st, the team traveled to Cleveland Ohio for the Buckeye Regional! It was a great 3 days filled with excitement!
Late Wednesday evening, our load in team brought in the robot and helped set up the pit for the days ahead.
On Thursday morning, the girls got to fixing the robot of for practice matches, just making sure everything’s in tip top shape. Since Thursday’s are practice days, not much occurred, most of the girls arrived and our safety captain had a meeting, but otherwise girls were just hanging out in the stands, scouting and cheering on our team during our practice matches.
Friday was much more bustling and busy day for every girl. After opening ceremonies, girls went down to the pit or scouted in the stands. The qualification matches we played were great, we are so proud of our robot and drive team! MO, our robot, did amazingly, climbing almost every time and scoring so many points!
Despite our hard work and improved performance, we were ranked at the end of Friday was 38th, but the girls weren’t deterred! After matches, the girls met back at the hotel and attended an pizza and ice cream social with girls from the three other all girls teams who attended the regional: Murphy’s Outlaws, Xcentrics, and the Fighting Unicorns! Girls mingled and ate dinner while discussing experiences unique to being on a female team. It was great to see so many women in STEM at a single regional.
On Saturday, the team arrived early to get great seats, and in doing so, placed us with a great view of our robot for the day! After another opening ceremonies, the qualification matches were finished quickly. A highlight of the day was when after some aggressive defense, MO ended up with Brain Waves’ robot, Maxwell, stuck on ours!
Amazingly we still managed to place a gear while dragging around Maxwell who had only one wheel on the ground and couldn’t get unstuck. Everyone was highly entertained for half a match while the scene unfolded. Thankfully, both robots were completely fine except for a torn edge of fabric on Maxwell’s bumpers. Both drive teams were very grateful that no harm was done.
The whole weekend the drivers did so well and all the girls were very proud of of our accomplishments. Unfortunately, we ended the qualifying matches with a rank of 37th. During alliance selections, we hoped to be picked, seeing as our team was ranked 13th in OPR(ranking teams based on offensive points scored).
Alas, our team wasn’t chosen, but we kept our heads high and enjoyed the final matches after taking down the pit and bagging the robot. Everyone left feeling more prepared and excited for our next and final competition.
Girls of Steel is going to Saint Louis for Champs after winning the Engineering Inspiration award at the Greater Pittsburgh Regional. Congrats girls on qualifying again and the weekend wouldn’t have run so smoothly if we didn’t have such a great team! Next stop, the Arch!