FRC team 4450 Earns Spot at the World Championship in St. Louis

Last Edited on October 28, 2019 by Richard

This past weekend, while most students were on spring break, the Olympia Robotics Federation (ORF), team 4450 and their robot named USS Kelvin,  was hard at work competing in the FIRST FRC Pacific Northwest Championship in Portland, OR.  64 teams from Washington, Oregon and Hawaii competed for the opportunity to make it to the “WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP” in St. Louis at the end of the month.

Competition started on Thursday afternoon and continued through late Saturday.  After the first day and a half of competition, Friday afternoon, team 4450 ended the day as the number one ranked team.  With two matches left to be played on Saturday, ORF’s team handily won the first match to keep their top seed ranking.  However, during  the second match of the qualifying rounds, “USS Kelvin’s” shooter broke and team 4450 lost the last match and dropped to 4th place.  However, ORF earned their spot in the semi finals and the opportunity to be the 4th place alliance captain.

As the alliance captain, 4450 picked two excellent teams work with.  Team 2557 the SOTA bots from Tacoma, WA, and team 4061 the SciBorgs from Pullman, WA.  ORF was disabled by their opponent and lost the first match.  However,  this alliance came back and won the second match –or so we thought!  -But!!! Lost on a penalty in the second match and was knocked out of the quarter finals. 🙁

32 teams from our division earned a spot at the World championship and Team 4450, ORF was one of those teams because of their combined play throughout the season and their participation at the PNW Championship.  At the end of the PNW championship, ORF was ranked 15 out of 32 teams based on the high number of ranking points they earned throughout the season,  which more than qualified them for the “World Championship” in St. Louis.

Team 4450, also earned the prestigious FIRST award for “Excellence in Engineering” at the Pacific Northwest championship for robot design of their robot the USS Kelvin.  USS Kelvin can Shoot from from anywhere on the field, scale the castle wall, breach defenses and play defense.  

Team 4450 needs help in fundraising to get to the World Championship in St. Louis.  They need to earn $24,000 in two weeks.  All help is appreciated.    To donate to this need, click here.

Want to learn more about USS Kelvin?  Check out this video of 4450’s robot.

Want to learn more about the FIRST FRC game Stronghold?  Check out this link about the game.