Gone Fishin' 3566

by Chelsea Cao ‘28

Many people may have heard that our FRC robotics team, 3566 Gone Fishin, has qualified to go to the district championships. This is the first time in ten years that our team has reached the finals. While that achievement shines brightly on the surface, it is the visible result of months of dedication and hours of work, from long hours of CAD design, building, and programming to testing, teamwork, and problem-solving. 

Dating back to January, after the FIRST challenges were announced, our team immediately divided into small groups to discuss the design, strategies, and building plan. Then, the building team quickly built the field elements out of logs in one week. However, this is only the beginning; the hardest part is still waiting ahead of us.

In the following couple of weeks, you might have seen field elements set up in the lower center or our drivers driving the robots near these field elements in the evening. You may have wondered who is working so hard in the evening. The answer is, it is our robotic team. Every member of the team was locked into designing, building, and coding the robot so that we could have a full robot in the first competition. With all of our members' efforts, before the competition, our robot was capable of shooting and scoring consistently into the hub. 

With this in mind, we possessed hope and excitement for the first competition. Walking into the site, there were loud cheerings, laughter, and the sounds of swerve drives spinning. Our team felt a mix of excitement and nervousness. The practices, late nights, and careful planning all led to this moment. For the entire two days, our drivers, coders, and builders worked together in the fast-paced environment, constantly repairing and strengthening. Our robot went on and on the fields without too much of break between. And in the end, all of our work paid off. We were the first pick of Alliance 5, and we ranked 10th in the qualification round. Finally, the days ended with a huge team dinner, thanks to all of the teachers picking a great restaurant. 

While we did a pretty good job in the first competition, we were determined to do even better in the second competition. In only one week, with only 14 of our team members here, we incredibly efficiently built a simpler and more rigid intake, improved the coding for autonomous movement, finalized the indexing*,  and expanded the hopper** capacity.   

*indexing: the process of feeding the ball to the shooter mechanism

**hopper: a storage mechanism on a robot designed to hold fuels (balls)

In the second competition, with the ambition to do even better than last time, we gave 120% of our efforts. Coincidentally, we got Alliance 5, but this time we were the captain! You may have heard this in the Athletic Winter Awards: through good teamwork and excellent robot design, we went into the semifinals. In the semifinals, our strong performances in the previous round put our opponents under pressure, leading them to take some alternative methods, including intentionally breaking our robot's shooters, so that they can win. But true competition is never only about success; it is also about how teams respond when facing challenges. In moments like these, what shines bright is not just how well the robot performed; it is about the resilience, determination, and collaboration of the people behind it.  Even if we were eliminated in the semifinals, they remind us that some of the greatest victories are the ones that require perseverance. 

Currently, the entire team is upgrading the robots to do even better than in the second competition. With our upcoming District Championship on April 15th, I wish our teams to achieve fantastic results, overcome every challenge, and make the competition a memorable experience for everyone.