The competition was during week one of the FIRST regionals and featured Walpole’s newly created robot that attempted to play the 2012 season game, “Rebound Rumble.” This year, the game consists of robots battling it out in a two and a half minute round of basketball with a three team alliance. The team traveled up to Manchester on Wednesday, February 29 after school to commence the competition aura in the air. Thursday afternoon was filled with practice rounds for each team to test out their recently created robot. Each team only has six weeks to complete a robot before it has to be “bag and tagged” and not touched until arrival at a competition. So, Walpole’s FIRST Team 1153, was placed with the task of actually completing their robot before Friday and Saturday’s semi-final rounds came to be.

Friday had rolled around, and the suspense for the robot’s success was evident in the stands. The first round that featured the RoboRebels had showed that the robot needed more improvements with its constantly breaking driving belts and no movement from the robot at all. After the results, the team quickly returned to the pit to work on fixing the imperfections. Once everyone agreed that the robot was ready, the team returned to the battle field. The second round was even more frustrating than the previous.

The RoboRebels operate on a computer system that was an upgraded version of the one being used by the technical systems of the competition and the team was forced to restart the robot because it was essentially crashing everyone elses codes. The robot was quickly turned off and set for re-booting, but the referees let the round start before the robot was finished starting up, so yet another move-less round for the RoboRebels. Junior and member of the robot driving team, Andrew Averill said, “The round was aggravating because we had finally prepared our robot, but the referees didn’t give us the chance to showoff.” Though the round was a loss for the team, they had more time to work and fix anymore imperfections.

Saturday proved to be better for the RoboRebels with the robot actually making shots and moving all around the court. For bonus points and a higher ranking, teams attempt to balance on a bridge with an opposing alliance member– and the RoboRebels were the second team to accomplish the challenge.  New-comer to the team, junior, Molly Breen said, The accomplishment was gratifying and the fact that it was our first completed task was exhilarating.” With the balancing of the robot, the team managed to earn a higher over-all ranking.

As the hours rolled on, more improvements were made to the robot, but it seemed as if there just was not enough time to finish all the necessary projects. Mr. Scott said that the Manchester Regional was a learning experience for FIRST Team 1153 and the robot will only get better as more time is concentrated on battle tactics and engineering improvements.

Now that the team has returned home, more and more hours will be spent on working on the prototype and making the the robot more accurate as well as a more well rounded machine. The RoboRebels will soon be returning to the competition scene March 22 for the FIRST Boston Regional. The team is projecting a better outcome as the robot goes through more practice and precision remodeling.