Greetings from Atlanta!

We are now done with FIRST FTC competition, and the events of the last three days are just beginning to settle in. As Jon wrote last night, the team was selected by the 2nd seeded team, so we began quarter finals matches at 7:45 AM this morning! Our alliance (three teams competing together) won the first the first match, lost the second, but won the third to advance into the division finals. At this point the team is in the top 12 teams out of of over 1100 throughout the nation. The competition was fierce! Our alliance lost the next two matches, and so we ended up our season as division finalists - basically tied for third place along with one other alliance. The students did an incredible job, and kept a great attitude throughout the day. At the awards ceremony, we were excited to see our friends from 2 all-girls teams honored -Einstein's daughters (team 32) got a special judges award (the generations award), and rock-and-roll robotics (team 25) received the highest award fro the entire 2010 world competition - the inspire award. I have included a few photos from the day. Please pray for travel mercies for the families returning.

Let me begin with God is good. After we completed all our matches we were ranked 22nd and only 12 teams get to compete in the next round. By all standards we had little to no chance of being selected for an alliance. The only thing we had going for us is we just competed with the team that was ranked 2nd and we had scored the majority of the point for our alliance. We struggled all day, but that last match we looked like the old Phi Robotics. Like I said God is Good and He allowed our team to come together when it was required.

I probably should explain how the alliance selection takes place. The four highest ranked teams get to invite 2 other teams to join their alliance. So typically they select other high ranked team to join them. As a rule the higher the rank the better the team. So at the end of the alliance selection only 12 teams from each division move on to the next round. So the fact that we were ranked 22nd and were selected it is a miracle.

We will be competing tomorrow starting at 7:45 EDT or 4:45 PDT. Pray for our team and our alliance.

God Bless,
Jon

The Team made it through the first day of competition in 5th place. We had some ups and downs. A bit of confusion caused us to lose our first match. But the team pulled it together and won the rest of their matches. The highlight for me was watching Dylan successfully drive the bot around and continue to score with the arm stuck in the out position. Dylan did not panic he just went about with the game plan. I guess I'm just a proud father. We have also struggled with our IR sensor. It is a good thing we have several programs that do not require its use. We have three more matches tomorrow. Attached are a few pictures from the event.

Wednesday night - inspection !

We made it through hardware and software inspection!!
Calin and Aisha were the only students available when the pits first opened, but they took on the task with gusto. Last year, we had quite a bit of trouble making it through hardware inspection, but this year they breezed right on through. The judges were impressed with the thoroughness of the diagrams computing the amount of various materials (Jon Stinson creations), and he laughed when he saw that the students (Wyatt mostly) counted the number of nuts and screws for the bill of materials. The judges were impressed with the overall level of documentation, and they chocked it up to the fact that we were an all-girl team! (remember only Aisha and Calin were there). I didn't have the courage to correct him ... anyway at that point we WERE an all-girl team! 1.5 hours later, while waiting in line for software inspection, Calin bemoaned the prospect of having to drive the bot in a practice match as part of software inspection, since neither Calin nor Aisha chose to be drivers during our matches. Right at that moment, John and James Mullen showed up (after an 8+ hour drive from Florida) and took over the rest of the inspection. Go Mullens! Unfortunately, we broke a cable to the wiffle shooter during the practice match, and I forgot to pack any spares in the stuff we brought with the bot ...sooo, panic time. I called Jon Stinson (who did have the sense to pack spares) having just landed at the airport with Dylan, we found out they were only a short distance away. In the mean time,we rigged up a cable splice to temporarily shoot wiffles for the last part of inspection, and by the grace of God the splice held long enough to get the third and last inspection sticker. We were IN!
A bit later, Grant Pickett joined the group trying to redesign the shooter cable, and we heard from Thomas Waters and his Dad that they made it safely into Atlanta. We now have a much more robust cable to the wiffle shooter, all our inspection stickers, and the guys in town now out number the gals on the team. Actually ... it was fun to have an all-girls team for a short time. I look forward to having all the students on the team together tomorrow morning. The team will go through judging interviews at 9:30 AM.

Encouragement from CBU

Go PHI! (Pronounced fi)

wear those labcoats!

Rock their socks off!!!

Praying for you!

-Jim DeVore

Team 452 Alumni

Greetings from Atlanta! The Pahle family and Thumper (the bot) made it safely to Atlanta Tuesday night. We look forward to seeing the rest of the team in the next two days! We took the same airline as last year (Airtran), but it was still weird when I tried to explain what was in the box at check-in, and the woman behind the counter replied "I know. I remember you from last year." Now maybe it is a bit out of the ordinary to see a 5 ft readhead struggling with a heavy, bright blue, 2 ft cube filled with metal and batteries, but I still looked over my shoulder more than once to see the hidden cameras. I think it is a good reminder of how visible the team is with lab coats and helpful smiles.

The robotics team is in the home stretch for preparing for the World Championships. We have one more meeting before we depart. Keep the team in your prayers as we travel this week to Atlanta.

2009-2010 Hot Shot Season

PHI Robotics is preparing to compete at the World Championships in Atlanta, GA. They qualified for the World Championship by winning the San Diego Regional Tournament. The team also won the Inspire Award at the Las Vegas Regional tournament.

The World Championships begin April 14th. The round robin portion of the tournament is held April 15th & 16th. The finals are scheduled for Saturday April 17th.