Coming out of the last qualification rounds Team 5056 was ranked 17 out 40 teams. We were certain we would be selected to be one of the 24 teams that would move on to the final competition. Unfortunately, several of the alliance captains chose teams that were ranked below us for reason we do not and will not ever know. There are many factors that go into selecting alliance members. Whatever their reason, we have to believe that they chose based on what they felt was their best option or filled a specific need.

With that in mind, we are still the highest ranked team not in an alliance which places us as the #1 alternate team. There are four teams that stay for alternates in the event that a competing team has a major failure or is disqualified in some way.  We are all hopeful we may still yet make it into the competition.

Regardless of where we are or where we're going today, I am extremely proud of these students. We have learned so much these last two days and we have all grown as a team.

Below is the view from our driver's station. You can see our bot directly in the middle with the arms pointing up. This photo was taken minutes before starting the most amazing round we've seen yet. Our alliance scored 211 points! Every shot our alliance took had full assist points. That makes a single ball worth 40 points. All because of we all worked together.

Before each match you are given about 10 minutes to work out a strategy with your alliance members. Our job was to get the ball from the human player and pass it to the scoring robot. It worked perfectly! It was exactly what our bot was designed to do. I cannot wait to get the videos uploaded so everyone can see just how amazing this experience really is.

- Phillip

The Buchanan Area Chamber of Commerce holds a chili walk annually to help benefit area charities and organizations. This year our Robotics Team was chosen. This was a wonderful opportunity for our students to get noticed by our community and raise awareness of all that we're doing here. We also cannot express enough thanks to the Chamber for their help and support.

So many things have been happening the last few weeks, frankly I'm disappointed we don't have more posted! Tomorrow is our very first competition so today has been spent coordinating everything and making sure we're ready.

Unfortunately, last night we had a major setback. The motor shaft on the arm assembly sheared off and it was a scramble to find a replacement. Fortunately we've secured one and and extra one so we can do the repair in the pits tonight. I plan to update more with photos and video while we're there.

- Phillip