Every year, nonprofit organization For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology hosts youth robotics competitions for varying age levels, with a unique challenge every season. Team 167 Children of the Corn, the Iowa City community team for the FIRST Robotics Competition, started off their competition season at the Minnesota Bluff Country Regional from March 5-7 in Winona, Minnesota.
The day started off chaotic for the Children of the Corn, as they did not quite finish their robot in time, requiring emergency fixes and changes to the robot to get it ready for inspections and matches. As the Minnesota Bluff Country Regional was a Week One event, and thus one of the first competitions of the season, many other teams faced similar challenges to trying to get their robot to work.
During the process of fixing the robot, a fire extinguisher was knocked over, and as the fire extinguisher’s trigger pin was missing, the pits, robot and nearby people got covered in powder, delaying repairs until the mess could be cleaned up.
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As Children of the Corn continued to fix and adjust their robot, they played in qualification matches to get ranked for seeding in the playoff round. Each game, two alliances of three teams each collect and launch foam balls, called fuel, to score into a target called a hub while trying to prevent the opposing alliance from doing the same. Team 167 played in 11 matches, with a win-loss-tie record of 7-4-0.
At the end of qualification matches, Team 167 was seeded 12th. During the snake draft to select alliance partners for the playoffs, Alliance Eight of Team 2508 Armada and Team 967 Iron Lions picked 167 as their third robot. Alliance Eight was eliminated in Round Two, Match Five of the double elimination bracket, losing to Alliance One and Alliance Five.
Team 167 Children of the Corn was also awarded the Team Spirit Award at the competition for their enthusiasm and recognizable team branding.
