Mechanically Challenged, Viola High School’s FIRST® Robotics team, competed in the Ozark Mountain Brawl September 22-23, 2023 at Harding Academy in Searcy, Arkansas. This event is held every off season and is the last competition in Viola’s region that uses the previous season’s game and robots. Viola was represented at the competition by 14 students and 3 mentors.
At this year’s event, the competition started off with skills challenges that tested a team’s ability to complete tasks associated with robotics competitions. These events included designing a work of art that uses game pieces in the design, parking the robot, balancing the robot on the charge station, scouting previously recorded matches, scoring the most game pieces in a certain amount of time, and driving in the dark. Viola placed second in scouting, third in the artwork competition, and just outside of the top three in balancing despite a time of 7.2 seconds.
After the skills challenge events were over, the qualification matches started Friday evening and concluded on Saturday morning. Qualification matches are used to determine the ranking of teams in order to select alliances for the elimination matches. This year, the team decided to use the Brawl to let less experienced team members get some practice in actual competition matches. Most of the drive team had never participated in actual match play. After a few qualification matches on Friday evening, Viola started Saturday in 7th place, and dropped to 12th by the end of the qualification matches on Saturday morning. This was due to the learning curve that new drive team experienced, and problems with the robot that needed to be repaired between matches.
Despite these issues, Mechanically Challenged was ready for the elimination round. As a result of their 12th place ranking after the qualification round, they were the last team to be chosen, and ended up on the number one ranked alliance. Their alliance team members were Team 3937 (Breakaway) from Searcy’s Harding Academy, and Team 16 (Bomb Squad) from Mountain Home High School. After alliance selection, the driver of the new drive team asked that Viola’s veteran driver step in for the elimination round, and he agreed to do so.
The elimination round was set up in a bracket that pitted the first alliance versus the fourth alliance, and the second alliance versus the third alliance. After a best two out of three, the two losing alliances played for third place, and the two winning alliances played for first place. Alliances 1 and 2 won the first elimination round, and progressed to the championship round. Alliances 3 and 4 fell to the consolation round, with Alliance 4 taking third place after a hard-fought rubber match. Viola’s alliance cruised through both rounds and won the championship without losing a match in the elimination tournament.
Photo Caption:
Pictured from left to right: Tru Offutt, John Martin, Chad Cooper (mentor), Maddox Trueman, Morgan Petty, Sophia Klem (front), Sandra Cooper (middle, mentor), Greyson Morgan (back), Dreyvon Kinder, Tommy Rodgers, Gracie Todd (front) with Noodles, Aaysha Trueman (back), Victoria Palmer, Gabe Peat (blocked), Noah Harber, Alecia Klem, Kevin Thrasher (mentor).