Team 2137 TORC of Oxford High School just completed its most successful season since it formed in 2007.
After four days of practice, qualification, and elimination matches, TORC became the Tesla Field Division Finalists at the FIRST World Championship held in St. Louis, MO. April 22-25! This was a first time achievement for TORC, having never advanced past the quarter-finals in their division at the World Championship in their previous five bids.
FIRST Robotics has grown by leaps and bounds around the world. This year the World Championship expanded from 400 teams to 600 teams and the field divisions doubled from four to eight. Each division advances a division championship alliance to the World Championship field, Einstein. TORC’s goal this season was to make it to Einstein. They were one match win from achieving that goal.
After the qualification rounds with 75 teams, TORC was ranked third with an average score of 167.5 (.5 from second place) and became the Captain of the number three alliance. As the alliance selections began, the number one and two alliances each selected an alliance partner. TORC then invited Team 2122 Team Tators of Utah, who respectfully declined and Team 1806 S.W.A.T. of Missouri, who also respectfully declined, as they preferred to form their own alliance and remain alliance Captains. Those team’s alliances, along with the number one alliance, would eventually be eliminated while TORC advanced to the finals.
TORC’s alliance included Team 3824 HVA RoHAWKtics of Tennessee, Team 1323 MadTown Robotics of California, and Team 2415 WiredCats of Georgia. In the quarter-finals, TORC faced the number five alliance, scoring 220-161 and the number six alliance, scoring 241-164 and moved onto to the semi-finals with the highest average score of 230.5, holding first place. In the semi-final round, TORC matched up against the number two alliance, scoring 214-168, the number five alliance, scoring 196-170, and the number eight alliance, scoring 186-154 and advanced to the finals with an average score of 198.6, hanging on to first place.
In the division finals, alliances must win two out of three matches to advance to the Einstein field. TORC now faced the number two alliance again, head to head. TORC lost the first match 193-210. They rallied back in match number two to win 214-208. As match number three began, both teams were hungry for the win. TORC continued its successful strategy of retrieving the containers from the midfield step during the autonomous portion of the match in order to decrease the compounding scoring ability of the opposing alliance. However, one of TORC’s alliance partners did not move for the initial portion of the last match and therefore did not score critical points. The match was lost 216-239 and TORC’s alliance was unable to move on to Einstein.
Bringing home the Tesla Division Finalist trophy and medals was a great finish to a season of firsts for TORC. TORC finishes it best season ever with a district Chairman’s Award, Gracious Professionalism Award, Engineering Inspiration Award, two FIRST Scholarships (Evan Mince and Drew Sedam), two District Championships and for the first time: the Industrial Safety Award, the State Championship Chairman’s Award, a Dean’s List Finalist (Kristen Ewald), being the number one ranked team in MIchigan, and the World Championship Tesla Division Finalist. In one season, TORC has added four blue banners, eight trophies, and two FIRST Scholarships to the existing six blue banners, thirteen trophies, and ten FIRST Scholarships they have earned in the previous eight seasons!
TORC was the number one ranked team of 346 teams in Michigan, the number three ranked team of 75 on the Tesla field, and finishes in the top 16 of 600 teams that qualified for the World Championship.
‘Congratulations to all the current TORC students and mentors, as well as the TORC student and mentor alumni. It took all of us to get here,? said Kim Shumaker, team mentor. ‘Also, a huge thank you to our sponsors, who support us through finances, materials, and services and to Oxford Community Schools for an amazing facility equipped with machines and coursework that increase TORC’s capabilities.?