Cary Academy’s FRC (varsity) robotics team (#5160) had a fantastic 2nd tournament, but fell short of qualifying for states. FRC tournaments are two-day affairs. Each team plays in 12 qualification matches which determines their tournament ranking. After those matches, the 8 highest seeds choose two other teams to form a playoff alliance.
The Chargers had a fabulous Saturday: solid driving, a lot of scoring and a record of 7-2 was good enough put us in 8th position at the close of day 1. Unfortunately, Sunday played out differently. A technical issue and some alliance mistakes led to three losses, dropping the Chargers to a rank of 18. During alliance selections, the 7th seeded alliance selected the Chargers and our 3 team alliance had the daunting chore of taking on seed #2 with two of the top robots in the tournaments. The Chargers were tasked with playing defense on those high-scoring bots and did CA proud, keep them from scoring well below their average. Unfortunately, it was not enough and our alliance was eliminated in the quarter-finals.
We ended the season just outside of qualifying for States, but with the satisfaction of building a solid, durable robot, capable of scoring and defending with the best of teams.
The Chargers would like to honor and thank our soon-to-be graduates Cameron Fisher, Michael Epperson and Claudia Zimmerman for their hard work and leadership during the years they spent in the CA Robotics Program. A shout out to all the parents for their endless supply of snacks and for the many many ways they helped and supported the team. Finally, the coach’s cup goes to Rachel Atay and Scott Allred who are crucial to the success of the team, as well as in the design and maintenance of the robot. We did CA proud.
– Guest Post by Besty MacDonald, Upper School Design, Programming and Robotics Teacher