Why Alabama?
The closest second tournament 2502 could get into was more than a thousand miles away by bus – a sixteen-hour drive! Talon packed up our tools, pit, and robot, and drove day and night to reach a large city in northern Alabama, Huntsville. Thank you to our bus buddies, team 3630 Stampede, who helped make this tournament possible!
Robot Performance
Rocket City began well. On the first day, we managed to make it to 10 practice matches, where we worked on making sure our automation and climb worked on the field in Alabama. However, we found that the lineup was not working the same as it did at home.
While every mechanism on the robot worked, without a single electrical failure or mechanical failure, we were unable to line up well enough to score accurately throughout the tournament. Our field at home was slightly off, and our robot did not have the ability to score on the actual poles reliably. After quals, we were ranked 17th and lost our first two playoffs as the second pick of the fifth alliance.
This tournament is named Rocket City Regional because there is a space center in the middle of the city. To begin our adventures in Alabama, we visited the US Space and Rocket Center, where we looked at huge rockets and the history and engineers behind them. It was really fun: as one Talon member described,
“I LOVE THE SPACE CENTER AT ALABAMA IT WAS SICK” – Talon Member
Weather
Our fun in Alabama took a turn when huge storms began to blow in. Turns out our robot performance wasn’t the only this trying to blow people away! The event schedule was shifted to allow teams to get home faster, and many teams had to leave the tournament early. Talon stayed at the event through playoffs and then raced the tornadoes out of Alabama. After a long and stormy bus ride, we got home safe despite the dangerous weather. A big thanks to our mentors in Alabama who kept us safe and also to our wonderful bus drivers!
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