“It was awesome” – Denise Lau, marketing mentor

“At the Minne Mini, our team had a complete reversal of fortunes, our team won all 11 of our matches” – Mike Bagstad, co-head mentor

“We won!” -Keith Rieck, programming mentor

On Saturday November 22nd at Prior Lake High School our robotics team the FireBears and their alliance partners won the Minne Mini. The FireBears picked the Data Bits (3883) and KING Tec (2169) as alliance partners and Cobalt Catalyst (3042) as backup, and drivers Michael, Jeron, Eric and Gavin carried the team to victory.  This alliance won all four of the finals matches, winning the tournament. In total, the FireBears won all eleven of their matches, and was the winning team out of the 36 teams who participated.

“Our drive team has been able to practice in a way that they never have before, at specific drive practices, but also at events like the Children’s Museum, and that combined with our familiarity with the robot has lead us to victory.” said Amy, marketing captain. She added “We’ve been with our robot all season, and by now, it’s our family, and I think that’s the real reason why we won.”

With kickoff fast approaching on January 3rd, and bag day on February 17th, the team is already rigorously planning for build season. “We’ve got a schedule hashed out, now we just need to make the magic happen.” said Amy

On a Friday in January after moving into our new location at the mall, our programming team figured out how to control last years robot with a guitar-shaped controller, known for its use in popular video games. After we learned to control our robot with the guitar, it became quite the team bonding experience. “It was the coolest thing ever” said Amy, a marketing member “We were working on chairmans and talking about what we could talk about and I looked behind me and I just pointed at it.”

Our team hopes to implement this design on future projects. Stay Flaming.

• Team 2175 The Fighting Calculators from Woodbury Math & Science Academy (Alliance Captain)
• Team 2052 The KnightKrawlers from Irondale High School
• Team 3130 The ERRORs from East Ridge High School
• Team 3313 Mechatronics from Jefferson High School in Alexandria, MN.

Scholarship Winners:

$500 Scholarships from Vista Technologies Inc.:

• Peter Irvine from Team 2175, The Fighting Calculators from Math & Science Academy in Woodbury, MN.
• Collin May from Team 2846, The FireBears, from Roseville Area High School in Roseville, MN.

$500 Scholarship from Roseville Visitors Association:

• Lauren Woolwine from Team 1816, The Green Machine in Edina High School in Edina, MN.

Good Job to Every Team involved and The FireBears!

Qualification rounds saw us compile a record of 4 wins and 4 losses to finish 37th out of 63 teams. We had some wonderful matches and some matches where we struggled. As the competition progressed we were standing out more and more as an aggressively driven defensive robot capable of shutting down the opposing alliance’s top scoring robot.

During the alliance selection we were chosen by the Mechatronics and the Nordic Storm to provide defensive capabilities for the 2nd seeded alliance. The quarterfinal round saw us win 2 out of 3 to move on to the semifinals, where we eventually lost in 2 matches to the alliance that finished 2nd.

It was an exciting end to the 2013 10000 Lakes Regional and to the 2013 competition season for the Roseville FireBears.

What you may not know is that this little baby is called Ankle Biter. Because it hurts when you ram it into someone’s ankles and, honestly, it’s at just the right level to do so.

The end. You may now return to your regularly scheduled procrastination.