The 2004 FIRST Frenzy season was seen by team 48 as another chance to make an incredible machine and show the FIRST community why we are unique. For the first four months of the school year, each team member went to meetings and classes, which were held for the first time by the team, to learn how to design, build, and understand the science behind a robot. All in all the classes were pretty eventful and they gave the mentors and team veterans a chance to pass along all the information that they had learned the years before.
Finally on January 10, 2004 the entire team met in our school's library to watch the kickoff. The entire team was silent as the game was displayed. The game looked difficult at first, but then as it was explained it became so much cooler. Some members described it as a mutant form of basketball. The basic idea was for the robot to round up kick balls for the human player that stood behind a wall so that he could then throw them into a five-foot goal or a 3-foot moveable goal. At the end of the two-minute match robots would climb to the top of a 1-foot platform and attempt to hang from a bar 10 feet above.
Two days later the team met again for a brainstorming session where we were all separated into groups to think of what we wanted our robot to do. In the end everyone was in agreement that we must concentrate on two things; we had to have a powerful drive train and we needed to be able to hang from the 10-foot bar. We left this meeting feeling confident that this year would be a very successful year. Work began the very next day on Xtrēmachēn7 by the design team.
Over the next six weeks the shop was very busy. We had a regulation size field to build as well as a robot. This year our design process took a little bit longer than expected and we hit crunch time very quickly without much to see. For the next 3 weeks students put in longer hours and got our robot build in just enough time for our annual pre-ship scrimmage. Unfortunately our arm was having problems lifting our robot and was overweight, but even though we couldn't hang the drive team went out and played the game without it. With just a change of strategy the team was able to overcome their problem and perform quite well.
With just days to go, the team made some minor design changes and began work on the new arm. When the ship date hit we packaged up the robot and shipped it to Pittsburgh, our first competition, with many ideas of how to get the arm working correctly before we had to compete.
On the morning of March 11, 2004, Team 48 got on a bus and headed toward Pittsburgh. Everyone was excited to see how our robot would perform with teams from all over the US for the first time. All fears and worries were set aside when Xtrēmachēn7 hit the floor and performed beautifully, even if it was missing an arm. Throughout practice that day, while the pit crew worked to fix the arm, our robot showed off its pure strength. We left the arena that day feeling good about the qualification rounds the next day. Friday went very well and the team went undefeated without the arm still. That night at our team meeting, the engineers announced that that the arm was working and would be on the robot for our first match Saturday. The team was as we all waited for our first match. When Xtrēmachēn7 was seen on the floor we all cheered and patiently waited for the match to begin. The robot quickly worked to gather 5-point balls and with twenty seconds left it headed for the bar and successfully hung for the first time. We ended up losing in the semi-finals, but the team was able to walk away with the Motorola Quality award, which we won for our superior and reliable drive train that performed flawlessly.
After a great performance in Pittsburgh, team 48 headed to the Buckeye Regional held in Cleveland, Ohio. Xtrēmachēn7 performed wonderfully again. We met other robots that proved difficult to beat on the field on Friday and felt very good about our position going into Saturday as the number 7 seeded team. Our alliance advanced to the finals but we unfortunately lost to the number 1 seeded alliance. Nonetheless we were proud of how we performed. We left Cleveland with the judge's award for our robot's design and a finalist trophy.
Canada has traditionally been a great regional for our team and this year was no different. We started off doing a little sightseeing in Niagara Falls and then drove to our hotel. As if it wasn't enough to just be in Canada for our team, when we arrived at the competition to see two competition fields setup and ready for use. For exactly this reason the regional was nicknamed the "Canadian Super Regional" and right so. Friday and Saturday were very busy for everyone. As soon as one match ended another one started up. We didn't do as well in qualifications as we wanted to but we ended as the 10th seed which put us in a good position to be picked and our hopes came true. Team 1114, who was the number 1 seed, picked us as well as team 1006. Our alliance was able to make it to the finals but due to some technical problems we lost. In our last match we lost by only 5 points. Regardless we all felt we did the best job possible. Finally it was time for the awards ceremony and this regional turned out to be the teams best regional by far. We left Canada with a finalist standing and four other awards; the AutoDesk Visualization Award, the Leadership in Controls Award, the General Motors Industrial Design Award, and First's second highest award, the Engineering Inspiration Award.
After a fifteen hour bus ride, we finally arrived in Atlanta ready for Nationals, which were held in the Georgia Dome. We were placed in the Newton Division with several other teams that we had competed against earlier, including the teams that made up the alliance that defeated us in Cleveland. Unfortunately luck was not on our side at all. We did finish third in our division, but we were defeated before we got a chance to win. We left Nationals and the 2004 FIRST Season feeling great. We had all done the very best job that was possible and we walked away as a team with the family type atmosphere that makes Team 48 unique.
