Last weekend we competed in the Wolfe City Open in Wolfe City, TX as our first tournament of the season. We mainly signed up for this event to get some experience ahead of the Battle by the Beach in November. But we were excited to see that there was a pretty good level of competition at Wolfe City and some of our favorite teams to hang out with – like the teams from Lovejoy High School, Greenville High School, and 580x Patriots.
We had no idea what to expect from this tournament. We had tested our bot on our practice field but we had never played a match or put it up against another team’s bot. So as far as we knew our bot could be total garbage in actual competition.
Qualifying Rounds
Our season didn’t get off to an easy start because in our very first match we had to go up against 4148E Three Headed Goats. They are really good friends… but they also have a really good bot so we were nervous going into this match. It was a lot closer than the score would indicate (144-58) – but our strategy with 1082K was solid so we were able to win.
After a tough match like that to start off with you’d think we would get at least a slightly easier opponent in our second match. But noooo. We drew a match against 580X. Suffice it to say, that one did not go well for us and dropped our record to 1-1.
But after that setback it felt like we were able to figure out our strategy and we went on a roll. We knew what we needed to do to win matches, we did it, and our alliance partners did their jobs perfectly. It was very methodical.
That left us with a 6-1 record in qualifying which was much better than we were expecting going in. It also gave us the 2nd pick in the alliance round.
When we found out we were ranked 2nd our heart was set on picking 580x – both because they are good friends and because we’ve never allied with them before. But alliance selection is always unpredictable and 580x wasn’t available when it was our turn to pick.
Fortunately, we were still able to ally with 1082K Eight Figures. They have a great bot and they are super easy to work with. It was an alliance that gave us a legitimate chance to win the tournament.
Could We Survive the Elimination Rounds?
The first two matches in the elimination rounds went well and we were able to win by wide margins. When we got to the semifinals, we had to go up against 580x and 4148A Average…
We felt like this was a match that we could win. But when it got started, 580x just scored so fast that we weren’t able to keep up with them. It stinks to lose, but it’s always fun to compete against 580x and there’s no shame in losing to a good alliance like that.
In skills, we posted a 113 in driver and a 5 in programming. Ok, so the 5 in programming is a little embarrassing, but overall it was a pretty solid score for our first run of the season. Our total score of 118 points was good enough for 2nd place in the tournament.
Between our match record and our skills score, we felt like we had a pretty solid day. Apparently the judges agreed because we got the Excellence Award.
Now it’s on to Battle by the Beach!
