By Kate Urchuk
This Saturday, June 24th, Melrose High School’s FIRST Robotics team took home gold (in the form of a decorative beach towel) at an off-season competition in Falmouth, ME. At the event — appropriately named “Summer Heat” — Red Hawk Robotics (RHR) competed with 29 other teams in a series of five qualification matches leading to the elimination tournament that afternoon. Each of the 25 qualification matches consists of two alliances, each of three robots. They collect and score rubber cones and inflated cubes in designated areas for points, aiming to out-score the other alliance. Additionally, at the beginning of each match, there is a 15-second “autonomous period,” in which robots perform tasks based on pre-programmed instructions. Every match concludes with robots working together to balance (or “charge”) their alliance’s teeter-totter platform, also known as the “Charge Station.”
RHR ranked 4th going into alliance selection, where the eight highest ranked teams select two robots to join their alliance in the elimination tournament. As the 4th seed “alliance captains,” Red Hawk Robotics selected team Mechanical Advantage from Littleton, MA and the LRTC Androscoggin Argonauts out of Lewiston, ME to play with. With this well-rounded alliance, RHR entered the double-elimination playoff tournament. After being beaten by the 1st seed alliance, Red Hawk Robotics advanced through the lower-bracket to meet them in the finals. Winning the first and just barely losing the second, RHR emerged victorious from the final match of the tournament. This victory is a great indicator for future successes of Melrose’s robotics teams, as this is the first event win for Red Hawk Robotics since 2015, and the first ever for the team in an alliance captain position. The upwards trend we’ve seen in the recent years seems to have no intention of stopping anytime soon. After ending the 2022-2023 robotics season with a tournament win, Red Hawk Robotics is poised for success going into next year.
