It’s been four years since the Lausanne Robotics team began competitions, each year competing in a different challenge.
Since September, Jonathan Kagoo ’18, Sam Hori ’18, Will Hamic ’18, Ethan Hamilton ’19, Woody Sharp ’19, Diego Alba ’21, Carter Trexler ’21 and Henry Tarkowski ’23 have been focused each day at practice after school on this year’s challenge, Relic Recovery. The fast paced game had the robots place blocks in stacks, extend a figurine outside of field walls and also had to complete an autonomous period in which the robot deciphers a pattern and places a block in a column according to a picture.
After months of hard work, the Lynx Robotics traveled to Huntsville, Ala. this past weekend to compete in the Alabama State Championship.Coming into the competition as the underdog, the team had a lot of prove.
The opening match began with the robot completing a full autonomous and placed three stacks rocketing the Lynx into third place. They held that position until their fifth match of the day where they finished on top in a close one, propelling them into 2nd place and giving them a captain position and allowed them to choose an alliance for the elimination rounds.
Using an advanced scouting sheet, Lynx Robotics studied the other teams and picked the number ten and number 23 seeded robots, Motorized Mayhem and Miss Calculation for their alliance. These teams, even though ranked slightly lower, were some of the best robots at the competition. Lynx Robotics cruised through the semifinals, easily winning their first and second game.
When the finals arrived, the tension had definitely increased.
The Lynx faced the 1st seed alliance who were the clear favorites. However, in the first game Lausanne scored a full autonomous and a cipher allowing them to win by over 120 points, followed by their second game where the robot encountered an error, but persevered and continued to drive around and score points.
At that point, it was a waiting game. When the results of the match finally flashed up onto the screen it took a couple of seconds to sink in, but our undefeated team came out on top by 12 points.
Lynx Robotics won state.
The victory also made them the Winning Alliance Captain, giving them a spot at the South Super Regionals in Athens, Ga. March 8-10, where they will have a chance to compete for a spot in the World Championships.
Congratulations to our state championship Lynx Robotics team! #TheLausanneWay