Welcome back to the austin cans blog for the competition season finale!
Two weeks ago, our team carted down to Houston, TX for the final competition before Worlds: the First in Texas District Championship. Although we did not perform as well as our Houston district event, we did get a bunch of fun experiences that I’m here today to dictate to you.
First things first: actually getting to Houston. We had a select number of our team who were either part of our drive team or pit setup crew leave Wednesday such that they could be prepared for competition on the following day. The rest of the team was set to leave Thursday before school, and after a 3 hour trip from Austin, we had finally arrived at the George R. Brown Convention center. Despite our early departure, a lot of other teams who had chosen to leave earlier were already situated in the stands, so our choices for seats on the first day were somewhat limited. With the way the competition works, the stands were basically split in two, one side spectating the Mercury field (us), and the other the Apollo field. Divisions had come out a few days prior, and although both sides of the competition were stock full with the best of the best of Texas teams, it suffices to say that Mercury edged Apollo out the tiniest bit in terms of scariness (not a biased statement at all!)
Anyway, after finding a group of open seats, we sat down and watched the remaining practice matches of the competition. We got the chance to spectate teams we had not yet encountered, as well as those who we had who changed their robot or driving strategy in some way. Thursday also saw the beginning of qualifications, when winning becomes fundamental in shaping the way your robot is perceived by other teams. Of course, qualis also give you more district points depending on how well you do, so it was in our best interest to try our hardest.
Coming into Friday, we were about top 20 in terms of rank, but this could quickly change based off of how we performed in our following rounds. The amount of qualifications we were in at States was greatly reduced from what it was at our District competitions, so we really needed to make sure we were winning our matches since each one mattered more. We ended qualifications with an 8-4 record as the 8th seeded team. This means we barely scraped our way into the alliance captain position, and if none of the higher ranked teams picked one another, our first match would be against the #1 ranked alliance. Luckily, that didn’t happen, but we were still far from safe.
Saturday was the first and only day of playoffs, and after an equally terrifying and disappointing alliance selection (no Lady CANs or Farmerville…) we were set to face the #2 ranked team as our first match, featuring Cryptonite and Robowranglers. Needless to say, we were a little bit screwed. We still had a chance due to the fact that our alliance was pretty balanced in term of individual robot performance, but a reality where we beat the two powerhouses was pretty unlikely. After being sent to the lower bracket, we next were pit against alliance 6, who, after a tough battle, we successfully triumphed over with a 4 point difference. Our next match was against alliance 5, which we were admittedly happy about considering that the alternative if they had won their last round was alliance 1. We thought we had a pretty good chance, considering our scouting spreadsheet predicted us to win. This would be the last victory necessary to get to Worlds. However, due to a few alliance issues, we were unable to progress further and were eliminated from the competition, only one match off from the global championships.
Regardless, no matter how close we got, the fun of competition will never be detracted from by a loss. Watching our team trade blows with teams we had previously revered as unbeatable was motivation for everyone—on the field and off. We got to teach our recruits that competition is not about victory, rivalry, or spite, but about having fun. Sure, being a few points off from setting a world record was cool and all, but I think that the memories we bring home will be the friends we made, the silly hotel mischief we had, and talking robots over 50 Applebees boneless wings.
