Team leaves for super regionals

On February 21, the Thermopolis robotics team “The Aluminati” got invited to the FTC Super Regionals event in Oakland, Calif. This is the first time a Thermopolis team has made it to Super Regionals. Head Coach Steve Radabaugh said, “We’ve been working toward this goal for six years now, and it’s great to finally be able to move on to the next level. I think it’s going to be a great experience for our kids to see what happens at that higher level.”

The event will take place on March 25-26, however the team will be leaving on the 23rd. The first day of the event will be the judging of the teams and also time for teams to set up their robots. The actual matches will start on the second day with finals and the awards being on the third day.

The Aluminati have been working very hard on designing and putting together a new robot that can complete high scoring areas of the competition. Senior and Team Captain of Aluminati Matthew Tjepkes said.

“The current robot design is very strong compared to many of the iterations we have had so far. This time around it looks like it is going to be able to handle all of the tasks we need to do.”

They completely took apart their old design and started on a new one that reused many parts of the old one, the current design can complete the highest scoring challenge in the tournament. Aluminati Coach London Jenks said, “I think we are making good progress on getting the robot to a higher level of competition. The main goal has been to make a way to climb and hang on the highest bar. There has been a lot of progress on the 3D design and printing. This is the part that I think will be the most challenging, but is essential to success.”

The team size of The Aluminati has grown. Members from Fist Full of Axels, the other Thermopolis team, have switched over to The Aluminati to help in any way that they can. This has helped the process of building a new robot. The two teams work very well together and bond well. The Aluminati needs to raise money to go to Oakland. The costs will run at about $250 per student. The students are going around the community and talking to different businesses for sponsorships to raise the money to go to super regionals, but also raising money to help fund the program for the following years.