Our winning Finalist Alliance, captained by Nanofusion, team 499, rocked yesterday’s Seminole High School Techtacular Finals match with a high score of 97!  With Nanofusion running great defence, we got 45 points on our autonomous run, scoring all five preloaded batons and balancing on a bridge, then scored batons in the stationary goal, got our rolling goal over the mountain to score more batons in it there, and finished the game with both Nanofusion’s robot and ours balanced on the bridge!

Our alliance won the day by a close margin, with a score of 33 to 26, in the second Finals match, with Admiral Farragut and Children of the Swamp strong competitors.  What a game!  Everything that could go wrong did, from an initially improperly sized preload holder that only held four batons instead of five, and a misaligned autonomous program (note to selves – include all game elements on practice field!) that resulted in a 5 point penality for touching the opposition’s baton dispenser, to smoking motors,a dislodged bucket, and faulty electronics – although we think  Mr. Markun, of Tampa Technik, will be happy to hear nothing that was fastened with screws and nuts fell off!     Our ranking went all over the place, and we finished in 5th place, and happy with our 2nd PTC Design Award. 

TDT members persevered thoughout, making fixes on the fly, tweaking programs, and staying focused.  Drive teams did a great job, and we head to the Florida FTC State Championship in Daytona Beach in February with several great drivers and coaches. 

More event pictures soon!  Thanks, Nanofusion, for choosing us to be your Finalist Alliance partner!  And thank you Florida FTC and Seminole High School, for a truly “Techtacular” event that ran efficiently and, even despite some technical glitches, ended on time!  Daytona here we come!