The Seven Rivers Regional
Carly Ungerer
Hamilton High School’s Charger Robotics competed in their last regional competition of the season early this month in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Charger Robotics is a high school FIRST® Robotics Competition (FRC) team, where students are presented a game challenge in early January and must design and build a robot to compete in competitions beginning in March.
This year’s season was focused on turning STEM into STEAM, and the game was called Crescendo, themed after music. In the game, robots scored foam rings called notes into speakers and amps as well as climbing onto a stage in the final 30 seconds of a match. Teams could also score ranking points, which determined the team’s seed in competitions, by winning matches, scoring a large quantity of notes, or scoring past a threshold on the stage.
The growth over the course of the season in robot performance was an analog for the growth of students into a new team structure that was in effect this year. In this new structure, students were broken into three production sub-teams and four non-production sub-teams.
The non-production sub-teams, like Drive Team, Impact Team, Business & Safety, and the Sussex Scrimmage team, were not responsible for designing or building the robot, rather focusing entirely on all the other facets of a FIRST Robotics team to make the team as competitive as possible. Business and Safety acted crucially to ensure the team’s longevity through maintained connections with businesses and documentation of best practices. The new Sussex Scrimmage Team took over planning for team 537’s annual event, which is crucial in the team’s impact and history. Impact and Drive Team transformed from traditionally competition roles into a full-season position. The Drive Team spent the whole season researching other teams, performing analyses on past and present games, developing strategies and requirements, and practicing with the robot, which culminated in the team’s excellent finish at WILA. The Impact Team worked from early January to the season’s end to contend for the most prestigious award in FIRST, the Impact Award, which recognizes teams that create exceptional impacts on their communities. They worked to write the award essay, practice a presentation, and prepare for in-person judging, both in formal settings and in the pits.
The production sub-teams were changed to make the team more competitive, with the goal of reaching competitions with the best robot possible. For 537, this meant a standard chassis with two unique upper assemblies. Mobility & Autonomy was focused on building a chassis that was among one of the smallest seen at competitions and coding autonomous programs, while Red & Black Teams worked to design all other parts of the robot. These two designs went head to head in an event called the “Robo-lympics” prior to their first competition in Milwaukee. Following the selection of the competition design, the upper-assembly teams integrated to create more unity, better suiting the competition environment.
The team took second overall, after making it to the finals as the second pick on the third-seed alliance, only nearly missing qualification for the FIRST World Championship, which will take place this week. Despite not qualifying, the team was proud of their performance at the Seven Rivers Regional (WILA), having shown tremendous growth from their debut at the Sussex Scrimmage in February and their performance at the Milwaukee Regional in mid-March.
Sophomore Aanya Ranasaria reflected on the regional and looked forward to the program’s future, saying “Our team grew tremendously this season. We bonded as a team and made a robot to be proud of. WILA was an amazing regional. Our team performed well and had lots of fun together. I will always remember standing with the rest of the drive team, waiting to see the results of the semifinals. The screen flashed blue, and we won that match by one point. I remember screaming and cheering, hugging my teammates because our team was going to the finals. While we ended up losing in the finals, I only have good memories of WILA. I can’t wait for next season, and I can’t wait to continue to grow with my teammates and win a blue banner next year.”
