Courtesy Photo The Alpena Robotics Team 5505 poses for a photo after taking second place in a competition over the weekend.

The second day for Alpena Robotics Team 5505 at Lake City’s District Competition arrived on Sunday, and it wasn’t looking good for Alpena as they were about to face some hard competition in their upcoming matches.

“Saturday had a pretty lucky schedule, so we were ranked pretty high, but Sunday had all of our difficult matchups,” said Evan McDonald, the head of scouting for Team 5505.

In the four matches they played, the team lost two, ending qualifications in fifth place. The next step was alliance selection.

“After a few losses, being ranked in fifth wasn’t terrible, but it puts us in a really tough spot for alliance selection,” said McDonald, who leads alliance selection for the team during playoffs. The team gathers data through scouting during qualification matches to assist with alliance selection.

At the end of selection, the team was the third-seeded alliance and they ventured into playoffs with two lower-placed robots.

Team 5505 went into a double-elimination tournament and lost early on, ending up in the loser bracket during the playoffs. They would have had to win all their matches to make it into the finals. One loss would eliminate them from the competition.

The driver, Gabe Robinson, was under a lot of pressure throughout these next matches. Robinson, and the operator, Jack Caplis, worked their way through each match. Team 5505 made their way into the finals because of the abilities of the driver and operator, and additional points scored autonomously thanks to the skill of the programmer, Madison Shearer.

Making it to the finals had a great impact on the students involved. Robotics gives students a set of skills that will never be forgotten.

Robinson stated how robotics has impacted him, “I have gotten better at communication with members in and out of our community, I have improved my work ethic, and I have built leadership and teamwork skills that will be used throughout my life.”

To win, the team had to defeat the other alliance in a “best of three” finals match. Team 5505 went into the first final’s match, but came out with a loss. This didn’t discourage them, as they led the next match. When time ran out, the team waited for the final score, and when they saw the results, they realized they were still in it. With the team’s hard work, they went into the tiebreaker and put up a fight. They fell short in the end, resulting in second place for the competition.

Team 5505 was awarded not only a second-place medal but also an Engineering Inspiration award for the robot. The Engineering Inspiration award is given to a team that showcases both mechanical skills and community impact.

A member of the business team, Madalynn Freehling, one of the people in charge of community outreach, stated how robotics impacted her, “I feel like it shaped my confidence and my abilities. It’s allowed me to pursue opportunities in my community. It also gave me pride in my achievements and works. It gave me greater connections with people that I didn’t know were possible, even outside of the community.”

Robotics impacts not only the students, but also the entire community. The awards they were given at the competition showcases the amount of hard work and influence Team 5505 has.

The Lake City Competition was a real success for Alpena.

Maddox Chabot, a member of the mechanical, CAD, and drive teams, reflected on the competition, “The big takeaway from the competition is how well we work together. We wouldn’t have been able to pick an alliance without the people scouting in the stands, we wouldn’t have been able to pick other teams to compete with if it wasn’t for the position the drive team put us in, and we wouldn’t have been able to function without the input from the CAD, Mechanical, Business and Programming teams helping us before competition.”

Many robotics students had the same take-away after the competition, as a result of their performance.

Information for this article was provided by John Caplis, an assistant principal at AHS and a team mentor.