Mar 8, 2020 • Carolyn C.

With the end of Day 3, so concludes our first competition of the season!

The Narwhals were ready to go this morning at 7:15, eager to rebound after a number of disappointing qualification matches on Day 2. As the last day of competition, qualifications would be wrapping up around noon and alliance selections for elimination matches would begin.

Although we were ranked low on the leaderboard, our members were intent on forging on and hoped for the best.

From left to right: Kevin Lee (12), Calvin Page (12)

We started off the day with our final three quals matches; in between, Mechanical and Controls were working hard to get Cheems operational again. Numerous fixes were in order—it really was a race against time. The question was who would win.

Problems had been popping up repeatedly since Day 1 even after fixes were instated, and the sources of the problems were also difficult to determine. However, that didn’t deter the Mech and Controls departments.

From left to right: Shannon Robinson (12), Kanvar Soin (10), Jenny Mar (10), Jude Lifset (10)

Today was also the day of our Chairman’s Award presentation; the Chairman’s Award is the most prestigious award available for FRC teams, as it is awarded to the team who best embodies the qualities of FIRST and is a role model for other teams.

Our Chairman’s squad did an amazing job, and congratulations to Team Spyder (1622) for winning the award this year!

From left to right: Arya Singla (10), Esme Abbot (12), Zoë Chan (12)

Unfortunately, our last couple of qualification matches didn’t go as expected either due to unforeseen circumstances and we ended at 57th place. Come alliance selections, we were not picked by the top-seeded teams.

Much of our team remained at the Fairgrounds through elimination matches in order to support the Millennium Falcons (3647), Torrey Pines High School’s robotics team. Although we won’t be competing together until next year (or… Houston? Gonna go knock on wood now…), we wish them luck at their next regional!

At the Awards Ceremony, which takes place after finals, we won the Entrepreneurship Award, thanks to the hard work of our business and marketing departments!

But our 2020 journey is not over just yet. The Aluminum Narwhals will be back at the Del Mar Fairgrounds this week for San Diego Regional; make sure to tune in again on Thursday for our Day 1 post.

And we’ve got one more thing before heading off to SDR–our Del Mar Regional Post-Mortem, where we’ll be laying out the nitty-gritty details of DMR and expectations plus rationale for the next regional.

Thanks for reading; I’ll see you all again on Thursday!

See more updates...