At MARC (Michigan Advanced Robotics Competition), which is an off-season event, it is a great time to test out new drive team members, add things to the robot since there is no weight limit, ext. This year, we allowed Aubrey Salkeld to move up from her human player position to be head driver and Lyric Clawson joined in as the operator/co-driver. With a brand new drive team with little to no experience, we did very well. Our team was in 4th place for a while, but we ended up being in 14th place overall and were picked by the number 8 seated alliance Team 4384 (Benzene Bots) along with Team 818 (Steel Armadillos).
When matches began, the drive team did not have a preferred method to their driving since they were new to the job. However, once the drive team got into the swing of things, they realized they are much better at the vault then the switch. Our robot was able to get all nine cubes into the vault with enough time to get around two cubes into the switch. In the quarterfinals, the first match we lost to the number one seated alliance consisting of the captain Team 2834, Team 27, and Team 9999. The second match, we were over 100 points ahead and then in the middle of the round the field had a major error and completely crashed, causing us to have to redo the match. Sadly, in the redo we lost again, but it is still amazing to be able to say our new drive team almost beat the number 1 seated alliance that had Team 27 Rush who is a world champion team. Another thing about the second quarterfinal, our robot broke in half. The bolt was not tightened enough causing the whole top of the robot which is what we used for literally everything came was hanging off and that caused to not be able to perform to the best of our ability. We are very happy with how we did and are appreciative over our alliance. They were great to work with and really kept us positive and motivated during the matches!