News
Parker Robotics Alliance Wins State Tournament and Advances to World Championship
By Nathan Satterfield ’19
On Saturday, February 23, Parker’s Robotics team 3507 Robotheosis competed at the Illinois State Tournament. The team was one of 44 teams in Illinois in attendance and competed in the Cooper division with 22 other teams, while the other half of the tournament was in the Solomon division.
To start the day, Parker’s team began by doing some emergency robot repairs to fix a motor that had had its output shaft snapped off during practice the previous day, and they worked to tighten structural components of the robot, as well as polish off the autonomous code for the pre-programmed period of matches.
As matches begun, Parker’s team started off strong winning their first two matches. The next three matches were not as promising though seeing Parker losing all of them, despite strong performances from the robot.
Entering the alliance selection, where the top four ranked teams choose two others to play with them during the eliminations, Robotheosis was selected by the number-one-ranked team, 14615 Turbo Charged from Oswego, to join their alliance. The other team selected was 10635 Unknown Element from Batavia.
In the division semi-finals, the alliance won their first two matches easily. The Division finals proved to be a little harder with the alliance winning the first and third matches in the best of three.
Winning their Cooper division finals meant that the alliance moved on to face the winning alliance from the Solomon division in the Illinois State Championship Finals.
In the first match of the State Finals, Robotheosis’s alliance lost the first match. With the championship on the line, the alliance came back to win match two 447 to 435! The third match saw another narrow victory in favor of Parker’s team, meaning that Parker’s Robotics team is the Illinois State Champion!
The State Championship win means that 3507 Robotheosis is heading to the FIRST Worlds Championship in Detroit the third week of April.
To see 3507’s winning alliance compete, check some of their amazing finals matches.
Francis W. Parker School educates students to think and act with empathy, courage and clarity as responsible citizens and leaders in a diverse democratic society and global community.