Coyote Robotics Teams Qualify for State Championship

On Saturday, Dec. 3, the two GWCS-Coyote Robotics teams competed against 8 other teams from Virginia and West Virginia in the FTC Southwestern Virginia Qualifying Tournament at Southwest Virginia Community College in Cedar Bluff, Virginia.  The small numbers of teams participating and the friendly, polite, southern ambiance created a fun event with lots of excitement and friendly sharing.

Though we both qualified for the State Championship March 2-3 in Richmond, it was a more educational than satisfying experience for our two teams.  Team 965 “Redstone Rangers” had a great robot and great programming but experienced technical problems communicating with the Field Control System during every match, forcing the drivers to struggle uselessly with a disconnected controller while the communications hardware kept rebooting.  During one of the short periods of complete control, Bobby Sunderland was able to get the bowling ball up the ramp onto the goal, among the first to actually achieve this result.  Team 3749 “Sam and Those Stupid Kids” had early success picking up a crate and holding it high for a 42-point score for that one crate (a higher individual score than most final alliance scores all day), but were forced to improvise with inconsistent results as their scissor-lift was not quite robust-enough yet to use as designed.

This photo shows Team 3749 partnered with Team 3477 “Geeks in Just Heir Underpants” from West Virginia, the eventual tournament champions.

Despite the long, 6+ hour drive both ways, we had a great time and look forward not only to returning to Cedar Bluff next year but to doing even better during our upcoming 3 tournaments in January.  Thanks for your support.  Go Coyotes! 

Gary Lindner, Team Coach

P.S. Special thanks to Mr. & Mrs. Firsching and Mr. & Mrs. McKay who drove us down and back and cheered us on from the stands!