And, We’re Back…A Return to a Normal FRC Season in 2022
As 2022 approached, Code Red, along with all the other FRC teams, was thrilled to be back to in-person competitions after COVID. The return to a normal season was not without its challenges, but Code Red fought to make it fun and successful regardless.
With seven students on the team, students were busy taking on multiple roles and learning a lot of new skills. Having a small team this year meant that team members were taking on multiple roles, which provided the bonus of learning and applying even more skills during the season. Our design and build season focused on building robot that could reliably score in the high goal of the new game for 2022, Rapid React. Our other objective was to climb and traverse all the way to the top. In the autonomous portion, our programmers set out to pick up a second game piece, then score both game pieces in the high goal. The final result was our robot, Apollo, capable of doing all of the tasks of the game.
Our first competition of the season was at Gull Lake. While we didn’t place as high as we had hoped and were eliminated in quarter final matches, we learned A LOT about our robot and how we could improve. Our debrief session after the competition prioritized making the shooter more accurate and making a functional climber. To work we went making those goals happen in preparation for our second event at Kentwood.
Arriving for our second event at Kentwood, the team felt optimistic and excited about what our improved robot could do. The shooting was reliable and as the competition progressed, we mastered a full climb and traverse to the top! Qualification matches ended with the team ranked 7th and a selection to be part of the 2nd Alliance.
Partnered with Twisted Devils (4381) and Red Storm (3875), we advanced our way through the playoffs to WIN the event!! It was a great turnaround from our first event and resulted in qualifying for the State Championship.
At the Michigan State Championship, Code Red enjoyed three days of competition and fun as a team. We played on the Consumers Energy field and ended playoff matches ranked 17. For Alliance selection, we were the first pick of the 7th alliance, but ended up getting eliminated in the quarter finals. It appeared that our season was over, as we were just under the qualifying mark for Worlds. However, there were a few teams above us who ended up declining to go to Worlds, which allowed Code Red to advance to the Championship in Houston, Texas. While we had mixed results at Worlds and were not selected for the playoffs, for a comeback year with only seven team members and three seniors on the team who had endured the COVID seasons, it was a satisfying and successful season.
