At the World Championship in St. Louis,Team Dave took home the Tesla Division banner, won the Xerox Creativity Award, and our alliance placed 5th overall in the Einstein final rounds.
Category: 2017
Ontario District Championships
Team Dave competed at the Ontario District Championships at the Hershey Centre in Mississauga, over the long weekend of April 13th to the 15th. By competing over the course of 2 1/2 days of qualifications and a day of playoffs our team managed to earn enough ranking points to steam line us to World Champs in Saint Louis!
On the teams’ first day of district champs our team was seeded low but climbed high in rank.We played at District Champs our 11 qualification matches with the 60 top Ontario teams.We started off after 22 matches in 53rd place and ended our last day in 5th place. The stadium was packed and full of pep, although we had a rough start we still managed to finish this challenging race with a high rank. We began the day by asking teams 5406 The Celt-X and 5024 Raider Robotics, to join our alliance. We competed in the elimination round but unfortunately lost in quarter finals. But thankfully we overcame this challenge thanks to all of our hard work at our other district event fighting hard to gather up enough ranking points to qualify for World Championships in St Louis Missouri. Our total District points put us in 12th place and the top 27 teams move on. Our team gave an amazingly strong performance and was recognized by many judges which the students really deserved.
Waterloo District
Team Dave competed at the historically competitive Waterloo District Event on March 24th and 25th, and piled up enough district points to secure at a spot at the Ontario District Championship!
In the first match of the competition, Team Dave once again got off to a strong start, winning 160-145. Throughout qualifications, we recorded the first four-rotor match in Canada with teams 5426 and 4917 (another local team from Elmira, Ontario), and the first match with 4 ranking points match in Canada with teams 4476 and 1114. We also had a few laughs about “spicy ketchup” — the emcee’s playful nickname for our drive coach, Rishi. After all 12 qualification matches were done, Team Dave was proud to have seeded fourth, behind only 2056, 1114, and 5912, a serious improvement from our 13th overall seeding at the Durham Event 3 weeks earlier.
Captaining the third alliance, we were very excited to select our local friends 4678 — Cybercavs, from Breslau, Ontario. With our second pick, we happily selected team 4814 — Incubator, from London, Ontario. Due to our skilled human players, we had an ace up our sleeve — a two-rotor auto which gave us a 20 point edge in nearly any situation at the beginning of the teleop period.
The Chairman’s team pulled off another successful presentation which essentially smoothed up everything we missed at the Durham event (literally and figuratively, as we applied a little lube to the Chairman’s board to make it turn beautifully!).
We entered quarterfinals against the 6th alliance consisting of teams 3161 — Tronic Titans, 4936 — Viral Vortex, and local team 2702 — Rebels. from Kitchener. Our alliance was able to cruise through with two back-to-back wins to make it into the semifinals. Here we met a persistent 2nd alliance of 4525 — Renaissance Robotics, 5912 — Heritage Robotics, and 4903 — Mustangs. Once again, Team Dave was able to move on with two 290+ point matches.
In finals, we met the most successful combination in FIRST history: 2056 — OP Robotics and 1114 — Simbotics. The energy in the stands was incredible after we appeared to win the first match, but unfortunately we were informed that the match would have to be replayed due to a field fault. In this replay, our two-rotor auto was unsuccessful and we dropped the match 330-308. However, we were able to bounce back in the second match, winning 290-334. In the beginning of the tiebreaker match, our alliance’s two-rotor auto barely worked, only to have the match fog-horned due to another field fault. During the true final, the two rotor auto failed, both 4678’s and our gear mechanisms broke, and we were only 4678 was able to climb. As a result, we lost 398-175.
In addition to the being the finalists, Team Dave also picked up the Industrial Design Award. Plus, driver and student build lead Danny Faryna was named one of the Dean’s List semifinalists. We’d like to congratulate 1114, 2056, and 6481 — Deus Ex Machina, for winning the event, as well as 4525 for winning the Chairman’s Award.
Team Dave will be competing at the Ontario District Championship in Mississauga, Ontario on April 13th to 15th. If we pull off a good enough showing there, and place in the top 27 overall in the district, we will be headed to the St. Louis World Championship April 27th to 29th.
Durham District Competition
On March 4th and 5th, Team Dave competed at the Durham District event in Oshawa, Ontario. Sporting a new gear mechanism, the team was excited to unveil our 2017 creation, “Attenborough”, in the first Ontario district competition ever.
Team Dave opened up with an exciting 196-170 win in our first qualification match. However, a very tough schedule and our rope snapping multiple times brought our record down to 7-5-0 overall, which seeded us 13th overall.
The Chairman’s presenters pulled off a wicked presentation bolstered by a creative visual board, but unfortunately fell just shy of winning the Chairman’s Award.
At alliance selections, we were happy to join Team 5036, The Robo Devils on the third alliance. We were also very excited to select Team 4476, W.A.F.F.L.E.S., to be the third robot on the alliance.
After a tie in our first quarterfinal match against teams 2994, 6513, and 5428 raised the tension in the stands, our alliance roared to a 311-245 win to gain the series lead. We then squeaked out a 157-145 win to move on to the semifinals. here we met a tenacious alliance consisting of team 1285 The Big Bang, team 4939 Allspark9, and team 4946 Alpha Dogs. We lost our first match 336-273 in a tough struggle, but then rebounded to even the series with a 255-244 win. Unfortunately, in the final match, our gear mechanism became jammed with fuel game pieces and we were unable to climb. This 260-116 loss ended our playoff run. 
Team Dave would like to congratulate the talented alliance of teams 1285, 4939, and 4946 on winning the event, as well team 772 The Sabre Bytes for winning the event’s Chairman’s award.
Team Dave will be competing next at our home competition, the Waterloo District event. We encourage all our sponsors and parents to come out and cheer us on at the University of Waterloo PAC on March 24th and 25th, as well as anyone else who wants to see what our team is all about!
2017 Week 3
With our sheet metal in, Team Dave has been hard at work this past week. We’ve riveted the chassis of the drivebase on both our practice and competition robots, and are making heavy progress on building up the practice bot. We’ve wired up the major components for the drivetrain, and had it moving around Saturday afternoon. We’re hoping to have most of the mechanisms working by the end of next weekend. It’s been a little quieter in our workshop due to our exams, but everything is moving along nicely.
The admin team is gearing up for a presentation with a new sponsor once the practice robot is nearly done, as well as reaching out to many potential sponsors. Plus, the first draft of the essay is beginning construction, as we start to move ideas from simple bullet points into a more comprehensive form.
