The new school year brought some new changes for our team, including an offseason event: the 11th Brunswick Eruption, hosted by Raider Robotix on November 17.  After so long without using the robot, we thought it would be fun to take it for a spin one more time.

We arrived with our robot at the competition at 7:00 in the morning. We quickly set up our pit and signed up for a practice match to warm up. After the opening ceremonies, the competition got started. However, the qualification matches did not start off well. Plagued by communication errors, our robot could barely move, and we lost our first three matches. However, after taking a match off to work on the problem without being distracted by having to change bumpers, we started to turn our day around. The remaining two teams on our alliance won without us, we fixed the communication problem, and we won the next match as well.

But after losing our final match and breaking a chain in the process, we found ourselves at the bottom of the standings, in a 7-way tie for 23rd out of 29 teams. As the top eight teams began to make their picks for the alliances of the elimination matches, we were worried that our day would be over right then. As each team was picked and 3637 wasn’t called, we became more and more convinced we were done. But then, to our delight, we were picked on the very last selection, joining Miss Daisy (Team 341) and Raider Robotix (Team 25) in the playoffs!

From that point on, things started going very well for us. We had a great time working with our two allies, and we tried to do our part by doing what we do best:  playing defense and preventing the other alliance from scoring, and balancing on the bridge. During one of our quarterfinal matches, we achieved a triple balance on our bridge, earning 40 points!  We ended up winning all of our elimination matches, sweeping the quarterfinals, semifinals, and then the finals in two games each. What started off as a frustrating disaster plagued by communication issues ended with a victory celebration.

Congratulations to all our fellow Daleks, and many thanks to our two allies, Teams 341 and 25! Let’s carry this momentum into next season!

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