ILT Recap!

Hi!

I hope everyone is having an amazing start to the best month of the year, February! :) We had our ILT last weekend and there is SO much to report.

We started out the morning bright and early Saturday morning (it was actually quite dark at 6am), and all four of us Marlborough teams piled into the bus to make the trek to the Palmdale Aerospace Academy. Unlike last year, we remembered to pack the posters; already a great start to the day! On the way, there was quite a bit of sleeping, watching Youtube, and, of course, running through the judging presentation. When we arrived there, Mr. Witman gave one of his famous WitTalks, where he gave us 3 words to remember for the day: Pride, Purpose, and Professionalism. In judging, so much happened, but it is all a blur. We had the nicest judges, and we all came out of it very happy.

After judging, we were able to head into the pit area much calmer than before and properly set up. It was great and the posters were perfect (thank you Studio Printing for the sponsorship)!! We continued into pre scouting and inspection, where things went off without a hitch. By the time opening ceremonies started, we were all ready to go for the day!

I spent the day scouting, and let me tell you, there were so many good teams! We were blown away with all of the innovative designs and unique mechanisms. We were in the second match of the day with WHS Robotics, where we ended up getting a score of 84; we were so excited about this great start to the day! We ended up 3rd place overall going into alliance selection and were picked by the #2 alliance captain (our sister team, Curiosity). To finish off, we picked another Marlborough team (Asteria) to join our alliance and fulfilled our coaches’ dream of having an all-Marlborough alliance!!! We couldn’t have been more excited going into elimination rounds.

After a winner-take-all match where us and Curiosity achieved the high score for the ILT of 103 points, we ended up advancing to the finals where we played against Hermit Social Club, Team Torch, and RoboKnights Too. With careful driving and capstone placing, our alliance ended up winning the tournament!

Our day got even better when we found out that our mentor, Dr. Lee Hamill, won the Compass Award. She is absolutely amazing and we are so glad that FIRST saw that as well (the video is on our Youtube channel The Marlbots 3526). After that, we got second place for the Design Award, second place for the Innovate Award, first place for the Think Award, and second place Inspire Award. For the other Marlborough teams, Curiosity won the Design Award, third place Innovate Award, second place Think Award, and third place Inspire Award, and Cosmos won the Motivate Award. We couldn’t be more proud of our fellow Marlborough teams!

After a treat from the parents of tacos, we headed back onto the bus for the ride back to Marlborough. We got back at around 8:30, already making plans for Regionals. We hope to see some of you at Monrovia Regionals on March 7th!

Until next time!

XOXO,

The Marlbots 3526