Texas Torque: Team 1477

Last weekend, members from Texas Torque, Jersey Voltage, Spectrum, and CRyptonite met at the Johnson Space Center, the new facility of FRC Team 118, the Robonauts, to prepare for the next event— the FIRST World Championships.

From morning to night, dedicated members of all teams worked together to simulate the upcoming matches. Through this, all the drivers and operators were able to gain useful and realistic experience on the field. Through the resources and effort provided by all, we were able to benefit greatly from the extra practice. Our main goal was to perfect the can grabbers, and Torque members made great progress in determining the necessary changes to the robot.

Without a doubt, the upcoming week will be spent in further preparation for the FIRST World Championships. Our experiences with other FRC teams were indispensable learning opportunities and have helped us advance significantly. We thank the Robonauts for offering their home field to their fellow teams in the spirit of Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition.

In addition, we are very thankful for all of the time and effort our fellow teams put forth in coming out to practice. (Texas Torque would also like to thank the Robonauts for the can grabber.) We can’t wait to see all these teams and more at FIRST World Championships later this month!

From April 1st to the 4th, Texas Torque competed in the Lone Star Regional, which took place in Houston, Texas. We were very pleased to have been one of the 57 teams from Texas to attend the event.

Qualification rounds began on Friday with two amazing matches by Texas Torque early on, setting the bar high for the top qualification score in the tournament. However, as with any highly competitive event, anything can happen. This was certainly evident in the next few matches, in which Team 1477 suffered a few disappointing losses in average score. All team members were glad to have a few hours of peace that night and took the opportunity to get some rest before the big day ahead.

Our team was chosen in the second round of alliance selection to be a part of the sixth seeded alliance, which was composed of teams 3335, 3556 and ourselves. During the elimination rounds, we had a success in trying out our autonomous mode. Though we were eliminated in the quarterfinals, we were excited to watch other teams compete and learn strategies.

Texas Torque is certainly proud of our second Innovation in Control Award at the Lone Star Regional and is grateful for the opportunity to compete against some of the best teams in FRC. We would like to thank all volunteers for making this such a brilliant event, as well as FIRST in Texas for organizing the competition. We would also like to congratulate team 3478 LamBot for winning the Chairman’s Award, as well as teams 118, 624, and 37287, who are this year’s Lone Star Regional Champions.

After the Dallas Regional and continued work on the robot, Texas Torque was eager to compete at its second official FIRST Robotics Competition event— the Bayou Regional.

Following the first day, which consisted primarily of travel and pit setup, the team entered its first day of competition at the Bayou Regional. While key members in each of the build subteams spent nearly the entire day working on final adjustments on the robot, other teams members took time to help out other teams at the regional. As a team that considers Gracious Professionalism one of the driving influences on the team’s character, a solid portion of our members went out into the pits to make sure that all teams would be in tip-top shape for the following day of competition. Work on the robot finished successfully as well; near the end of the day, our team played two practice matches to get a feel for the game and performed very well on the field.

On the second day of the competition and the first day of qualifications, Texas Torque started the day off scoring 71 points in the first qualification match. That night, team leadership and scouting/strategy officials on the team met to discuss what could be seen in the following day of competition and potentially strong alliance partners.

The third day of competition started with a relatively low score due to further problems on the robot. We continued to play through the rest of the qualification matches, ranking 13th. We were happy to form an eliminations alliance with FRC 3959, Morgan County Mech Tech, and FRC 1421, Team Chaos.

The regional ended fantastically with a well-deserved Engineering Inspiration award, the second in Texas Torque’s history. The team is honored to have been bestowed this prestigious award and be identified as a team whose character and impact serves as a model for other FRC teams. We would like to congradulate FRC 3337, Panthrobotics, for winning the Bayou Regional Chairman’s Award.

Texas Torque would like to congratulate FRC 3937, Breakaway, FRC 3039, Wildcat Robotics, and FRC 3946, Tiger Robotics, for their victory at this event. In addition, we are grateful for the efforts of the Pontchartrain Convention Center for hosting the event, as well as the constant support of our sponsors and everyone involved with the team. We hope to see many of these amazing teams at the Lone Star Regional in two weeks; in the meantime, Texas Torque members across the board will be busy preparing for this upcoming challenge.