#ilfirst

[7351ftc]

We had a great time at today’s FIRST Ladies Meet Up that we Co-Hosted with Vertigo.  

This was a first attempt at shifting the focus of local FIRST Ladies Meet Ups to greater collaboration, engagement and sharing.  We were proud to have Kristi Botkin from Abbvie as our primary facilitator as she shared her educational and professional experience with participants.  While we had to connect with teams in the pits to draw attention to the event, in the end we had a good crowd and are pleased with our new approach.  Let’s continue to work together to grow and evolve the FIRST Ladies community into a network of resources and support for each other as we continue down the path of STEM and robotics.

A shout out to the support we received from our male teammates on both Dynamic Signals and Vertigo who also showed up to support our event.  

We look forward to further Amp It Up! at the State Championships at Elgin on FEB 24th.

[7351ftc]

Great to see our friends and family come out (many not pictured) to cheer us on.  You have always been a great support system for us and we were glad to hear you brought your loud voices along for this one!

[7351ftc]

When all matches are over and everything is now out of your control, all you can do is gather and hope.  We enjoyed the building excitement with Vertigo (6287) and Null Point Exception (13413).  We also liked the outcome quite a bit!!!

[7351ftc]

What a day of competition!  While we had our challenges and we certainly had an extremely difficult draw of competitors throughout the day, we were fortunate to complete the day Ranked 4th (QP 24, RP 1155, R4) with the help of a well tuned POP and its new relic scoring mechanism.

We were pleased to become the first selection of the number 2 seed Winning Alliance Captain (spoiler alert) Vertigo (6287) along with second selection Null Point Exception (13413).  Following a hard fought semi-final, we got into a shootout with the number 1 seed alliance of Newton Busters (10138), NYAN Robotics (10091) and the Valkyries (11163).  After winning the first Match  (F-1) 354-304 we went down in Match 2 302-374 (F-2).  The crowd was lively with this well matched competition drawing excitement from all who watched.  The excitement grew as we moved on to the final match that would decide it all (F3).  You can watch this exciting match for yourself https://www.twitch.tv/videos/223657273?t=01h23m09s.  The outcome ... a victory of 470 (430 without penalties) - 372 and a League Championship Winning Alliance!

Thanks to our hosts at Highland Park High School for an excellent event.

[7351ftc]

We are honored to have advanced to the Illinois FIRST Tech Challenge Relic Recovery State Championships as Winning Alliance First Selection, Inspire Award Third Place and Connect Award recipients.  We also were recognized as a finalist for the Motivate Award.  Many thanks to Winning Alliance Captain Vertigo for trusting in us as your Alliance partner.  It was a wild ride but it was worth the journey.  What a great blend of robots and what a great alliance.

Congratulations to the other teams, and our many friends among them, that are advancing to the FEB 24th IL State Championship in Elgin along with us.  We look forward to seeing, and competing with and against all of you, in Elgin.

[7351ftc]

Come join us and our friends Vertigo as we Co-Host the FIRST Ladies Meet Up this Sunday.  Bring a friend to interact with other community girls and collaborate on ways you can make the most of your involvement in FIRST Ladies, interact with professional Kristy Botkin of AbbVie to learn and dialogue about women in the workplace and her journey from MSOE to the professional world of engineering, build on ideas of ways to perform outreach to others in the community or simply hang out and socialize.  There is something for everyone!  Share, Network, Inspire.  We look forward to meeting up with YOU.

[7351ftc]

Things are always dynamic with 7351, especially as we prepare for competitions.  Tonight, the focus was on judging, final testing of our Dynamic AR augmented reality application and putting the final touches on POP.

We look forward to seeing everyone at League Championship at Highland Park High School on Sunday.  Come out and cheer us on as we face off against the best robotics teams the community has to offer.

[7351ftc]

Looks like the build season has shifted gears into down and dirty . . .