2018 Team at the Michigan State Championship 
3rd seed alliance & quarter finalists in the Dow Division
Honored to win the Excellence in Engineering Award sponsored by Delphi

THANK YOU to our alliance partners! Captain, Team 4237 Lance-a-Bot and partner Team 5467 RoboTractors!
We hope to play with you again in the future! 

MEDIA & PRESS
Lapeer’s Chimeras qualify for World competition at Cobo ---> The Lapeer County Press 
Flickr Album of event photos ---> 

2018 Marysville District Event Winners! 
Thanks to our alliance partners, Team 217 Thunderchickens and Team 7218 Bradford Botdogs! 

PRESS & MEDIA

Chimeras Victorious at District - The Lapeer County Press 
RoboZone TV  - Qtr Finals Recap   Semi Finals Recap   Finals Match 1 Recap   Finals 2 Recap 

Hanging up the blue banner in our room.

We competed at our first of two district events over on March 8-10th at Kettering University.  Overall we were really happy with our performance, but also realized what we need to change or fix on our robot Nemesis before the next competition to be even more successful! 

Although our overall design served us very well, we had some issues with the way our robot was receiving messages from the field which caused problems with our autonomous modes.  No matter what we did and even had experts looking at it, we couldn't resolve the issues with the Pigeons we were using, so switching it up for next time.  It was frustrating because our programming team had worked so hard on our autons and they worked perfectly in our room and on the practice field, but only randomly on the actual field.  We hope our changes will correct this issue for Marysville so we can show what our robot can do!  (video of our 2 cube switch auton that worked a few times below...) 
The other was our climber.  It just had not worked as well as we would have liked and was taken off as soon as the comp was over!  We have already prototyped and made something different that so far has proven to work quite well. 
One thing we do well is to learn from our failures or obstacles...quickly assessing and moving on to something that will work better! 

We also played one match 2 vs 3!!  The 3rd robot in our alliance was not working and unable to compete, so it was just us and Team 3667 who fought hard and nearly won!! It was an exciting match to play and had us quite pumped for the rest of the day regardless of the loss.  See the match ----> CLICK HERE

We also held the high score of 518 for the entire event from Qualification match #11. 

It was nice to be back at it and to see the other FRC teams as well. These events are a competition, but the comradery between all the teams is something we look forward too. Being able to help other teams with whatever they needed is always a plus!

Our 2018 Team of students (minus Wesley & Hunter), mentors and alumni after the event.  Nemesis, our robot was already sealed back up in his bag and ready to head back home! 
Row 1: Trista, Haley, Brent, David
Row 2: Christian, Alexis, Grace, Sam, Caoihme
Row 3: Ryan, Ana, Matt, Luke, Will
Row 4: Sydney (holding our award), Aiden, Gavin, Marshall, Nick
Row 5: Steve, Alicia, Bernadette, Scott, Jon, Rob

THE LOWDOWN:

Our team competed in 12 qualification matches and landed in the 6th seed alliance for the elimination rounds with Team 5712, Hemlock's Gray Matter (captain) and Team 1243, The Dragons.  Our alliance fought hard during the quarter-finals, and succeeded to take down the 3rd seed alliance in a final tie breaking match.  We went onto compete in the semi-finals and although we stayed fighting, we were beat by the 2nd seed alliance. 

Our team earned The Creativity Award which "celebrates creativity in design, use of component or strategy of play." We were awarded this for our unique intake design which uses top and bottom rollers as well as sensors to pick up a cube from any orientation. 
As a team, we were incredibly honored and proud to win this award!  It's taken many prototypes and iterations of this design to get it how we want it and we are still making improvements! 

Our team captain and driver, Gavin Storts, was awarded as the District Dean's List Semi-Finalist out of all the other nominees at Kettering. This award "recognizes outstanding student leaders whose passion for and effectiveness at attaining FIRST ideals is exemplary." Criteria for this award includes: Demonstrated leadership and commitment to the ideals of FIRST, effectiveness at increasing awareness of FIRST in the school and community, interest in and passion for a long-term commitment to FIRST, overall individual contribution to their team, technical expertise and passion, entrepreneurship and creativity and the ability to motivate and lead fellow team members.  
​He will go on to interview again for the title of Finalist at the Michigan State Championship!!!  We couldn't be more proud of him! 

Mentor and our Coach, Jon Uren was nominated by our team members for the Woodie Flowers Award, which "celebrates effective communication in the art and science of engineering and design. Dr. William Murphy founded this prestigious award in 1996 to recognize mentors who lead, inspire and empower using excellent communication skills." A winner for this award is chosen at the Michigan State Competition. 

HUGE thanks to our alliance partners - Team 5712 (captain) and Team 1243!  We had a blast playing with you and worked really well together in the finals! Hope to play with you again in the future! 

​Congrats to the winning alliance of Team 4003 TriSonics, Team 494 Martians and Team 7144 Next Tech Hydra!!

Our team next competes during the last week of district competitions at the Marysville District Event at Marysville High School, April 5-7th. From there hoping to qualify for the Michigan State Championship which will be the next weekend and then the World Championship in Detroit at the end of April. 
Wish us luck! 

Pictures of our team from photographer Daniels Ernst ----> CLICK HERE 

Full album of pictures taken by members of our team --->  CLICK HERE 

Article in The Country Press ---->  CLICK HERE

Our 2018 Season game challenge is here! 

We gathered at CFI for the game reveal early Saturday morning. The excitement was flowing, even if you can't tell from the somber/serious faces in the first pic! The smiles picked up more as we watched the live broadcast from FIRST and then later after we took time to break up into groups, read sections of the manual and then present them to the team. 

After going over the game manual and having lunch, we drive right in to projects.  Some building field elements, some start prototyping, some begin the strategizing sessions to help us decided what goals we need/want to achieve. The room was buzzing with activity and it was a productive first weekend of Build Season! 

And when you build field elements they must be tested properly!  Which is why we keep lil Chimichangas around. 

It's also important to practice safety first, but a little singing and dancing is allowable. Sydney show us the way. 

A clean and organized room before the chaos begins. 

It's always good to end one season with some cleaning, organizing and figuring out what will be needed as we start another. Also good to get a shot of this as it will not be this way for quite some time! In a few days the tools will be buzzing, room rearranged, ideas flying around, parts scattered in the mix of prototyping and building...an endless list activities that will change this scene quickly as our six week Build Season begins. 

Game reveal is on Saturday. We're excited and ready to begin all over again. 2017 was an amazing year for our team. Lots of growth, challenges we learned valuable lessons from and incredible moments we'll never forget. 
Bring it on 2018! These fire-breathing mythological beasts (oh yes, it's true) are ready to take on whatever you throw at us! 
#ChimeraStrong