this past weekend in
achieving its 3rd tournament championship in 3 attempts this season. On January 16th 2010 the team of 5 (James, Lee, Kieran, Josef and Fred III) played on their “home away from home” field at Quinsigamond Community College against teams from Massachusetts, Maine and California in the 2010 VRC Massachusetts State Championship .Fred III performed efficiently and consistently in the qualifying rounds and managed to go undefeated edging out an undefeated team from South High School by a mere 2 SP’s in the tiebreaker to earn the 1st seed. GER chose another undefeated team 1768, Plan B from Nashoba Regional High School as their first pick. Plan B, competing in its very first VRC tournament was a 1student team (designer, builder, driver, scout, etc.) with his dad for coaching and support. The 3 team alliance was rounded out with team 2610B from Claremont Academy in Worcester.
The alliance performed well together advancing through the quarters and semis with 4 straight decisive wins. The finals pitted them against the #2 alliance captained by the team from South High School (2606C) in Worcester which sailed through its quarterfinal and semifinal bracket. They chose the quick, effective scorer and eventual Excellence Award and Programming Skills winner, The Cheesy Poofs (254E) from San Jose, California as their first pick. Their alliance 2nd pick was a cross town team from Worcester Technical High School. The Cheesy Poofs were chosen by the South High School team captain to be the anchor team to play in the finals in both of the matches.
The Finals pitted the #1 and #2 robots in both the Programming Skills and Driver Skills competitions head to head in both matches. GER held the edge in the Driver Skills (109) while the Poofs were the winners in the Autonomous Competition. The action shaped up as expected with the #2 alliance getting out of the gate quickly in the first match to win the autonomous period. Alliances fought hard during the match with loads of 5 balls passing back and forth over the walls in rapid succession. Teams 44 and 1768 managed to dig out of the early pileup to pull out the victory by the end of the match.
The final match started in favor of the GER alliance with the teams 44 and 2610B winning the autonomous period and getting an early advantage. As in the first match, balls were flying back and forth. The Cheesy Poof robot and its driver appeared to be more and more in “the zone” as the tournament and match progressed gathering and dumping large loads very quickly. The match ended with an exchange of bonus balls with 254E in possession of the GER ball as time ran out. The #1 alliance earned the victory and the Championship.
On December 5th, 2009 the team competed at the Quinsigamond Vex High School Championship where they managed to earn a tournament champion award as the first pick in an alliance captained by the Connecticut team, Gus Robotics (228). The 2nd pick was a Freshmen team from Worcester Tech (2625C). Green Egg Robotics finished the day with only 1 loss (due to a missed match at the very start of the day) and was the recipient of the Excellence award. No Driver Skills or Programming Skills competitions were held at this event.
