We are excited to announce that we won the Judges’ Award at the FIM Troy event, which took place April 1-2 at Troy Athens High School. Since our last competition, we streamlined and improved our intake system, improved our climber to be able to get to the traversal bar, and made our shooter smarter and more efficient. We also designed new banners for our pit highlighting important aspects of our team’s efforts in impact, training, and outreach.The Judges’ Award recognizes the team for its’ unique efforts, performance, and dynamics.

We performed very well in our 12 qualification matches, earning a high enough rank to become the #8 alliance captains and select our own alliance partners for the elimination rounds. We selected FRC Team 1250 the Gator Bots, and FRC Team 7769 The Crew. Despite our best efforts, we were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs.

Our team members were greatly impressed with our performance at the competition. Junior Philip Austin said, “It was great to see the progress we made in between competitions, and the upgraded climber being able to work without incident.” Freshman Jack Fernandes said, “I was impressed with how fast we were able to adjust our climbing mechanism. I had a lot of fun interacting with other teams, and strategizing with a lot of different people.” Sophomore Justin Tran said, “The excitement of cheering on our bot from the stands was a really fun experience for all of the new team members. I’m glad we were able to compete this year and see how cool robotics competitions really are.”

Our success would not have been possible without the help from our team, mentors, and our sponsors, which include: Acorn Industries, AirTool Performance, Our Anonymous Donors, Autokiniton, Brown Jig Grinding, Credit Union One, Dazzle Dental Care, Detroit Catholic Central High School, DTE Energy, Dynamic Machine of Detroit, Exotic Automation & Supply, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Kettering/GMI Alumni Association, KLA, Lorelli & Lorelli Law, Michigan Department of Education, Mitsubishi Electric, Sachse Construction, Stemville, STRATTEC Power Access, Superabrasives, The Baker Group, The FCA Foundation, The Maids of Ann Arbor, and Varsity Lincoln.