@Phantom Lakes!

Round Table Robotics competed at the 2025 Phantom Lakes regional in week five of the competition season. The additional four weeks of preparation contributed to our best first event finish ever and our highest ranking since 2019. On Saturday, we concluded the qualification matches ranked ninth overall with an 8-6-0 record. As the captain of the number six alliance, we selected teams 4786 Nicolet FEAR and 930 Mukwonago BEARs for the finals. Although our alliance was eliminated in round two of the finals, we were very happy with the performance of our robot, Barracuda, and the efforts of the drive, pit, and scouting teams. We received the Creativity Award sponsored by Rockwell Automation, which acknowledges creativity that enhances strategy and is intentionally designed. This recognition highlights the efforts of our design sub team, and it was notable as Rockwell Automation is a GOLD level sponsor.

Our awards team presented for the Impact Award, which is the most prestigious award at FIRST. This award honors the team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate and best embodies the mission of FIRST. It was established to maintain the central focus of the FIRST Robotics Competition on the ultimate goal of transforming the culture in ways that will inspire greater levels of respect and honor for science and technology, as well as encouraging more of today’s youth to become leaders in these fields. Although we were not chosen for this award, we are pleased to see Team 3354 PrepaTec – TecDroid from Querétaro, Mexico earn this remarkable distinction. We also bestowed several awards of our own. These included the Awesome Alliance Partner Award for Team 2350, Inconceivable; the Super Safety Award for Team 6574 Ferradermis; and the Riveting Robot Award for Team 4635 PrepaTec - Botbusters.

After taking Sunday off, we resumed work last night on improvements to the robot for the upcoming Wisconsin Regional Event starting Saturday, April 5th at the State Fair Expo Center in West Allis, WI. We plan to spend the next two days (approximately 12 hours of work time) making operational changes to our robot and providing additional driving team practice at our home field at school. The event this weekend will run from 8 am to 5 pm both Saturday and Sunday, and admission is free to all. We aim to build on our performance from Phantom Lakes with a goal of continuous improvement. We still need to qualify for the World Championships in Houston and hope to achieve this by Sunday at the Wisconsin Regional. If you have some time this weekend, stop by and check it out.