The FIRST Robotics team, Bomb Squad, has won the Midwest Regional in Chicago after three days of competition against 53 other teams from eight states, as well as Turkey and China.After the last qualification match Saturday, the team was able to lock in the number one seed by getting four ranking points. The team had eight wins and two losses during qualification matches.
Team captain and Mountain Home High School senior Bailey Ross says it was an exciting day for the Bomb Squad and at times nerve-racking.
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During the alliance selection, the Bomb Squad chose team 2451 PWNAGE, who according to faculty sponsor Jackie Basinger, had an “awesomely fast switch bot.” When another draft called the Serpentine came back around, the Bomb Squad was able to snatch up team 6823 Wildcats, a steal the team never thought would still be available.
Going into the quarterfinals, the Bomb Squad members locked in their strategy. In a huge upset, they lost the first quarterfinal match against the eighth seeded alliance, due to extremely heavy defense on 2451. In the next match, they quickly turned it around and breezed through the semi-finals and climbed all the way up to finals. In the finals, they play three skillful teams, 578 R Cubed from New York, 1706 Ratchet Rockers and 5822 Wolfbyte.
In the first match, it was a constant scale battle, and the Bomb Squad was unable to pull out a win. They rallied the next match with scale domination and were able to tie it 1 to 1. The next match, they nailed their alliance’s autonomous mode and quickly went to work owning their own scale and the other team’s switch. They were able to successfully get to the bar and face the boss. At the end of the match, the preview score showed the Bomb Squad’s alliance with 305 points and their opponents with 315. After review, the final score of 344 to 315 was announced, and the Bomb Squad was the champion. Ross says the last match was definitely the most intense portion of the competition for the Bomb Squad.
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The team will compete against 400 teams next week, April 18-22, at the World Championship in Houston, and Ross says everyone on the squad is looking forward to going to Texas.
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The Bomb Squad journey can be followed by watching it live on the website frcteam16.org <http://frcteam16.org> and by following FRC Team 16 on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
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