The HOT Team is on fire again at the State Championship! After burning through their district competitions at Troy Athens and Milford High School to rank top in the state, the Heroes of Tomorrow entered the FIRST in Michigan Championship at Saginaw Valley State University, ready to give it their all! During their qualification matches, HOT faced challenging circumstances in the Aptiv™ Division against strong teams, but proved to be among the top teams competing. They went on to score what was then a world record of 190 points with teams 33 and 2767, known as the Killer Bees and StrykeForce.
Going into playoffs, the HOT team was chosen by the division’s 3rd placed alliance, Team 5050: Cow Town Robotics. Together, they selected team 7174 Charger Robotics to go into the playoffs. The alliance performed exceptionally during eliminations, scoring another impressive 183 points. Throughout the matches, HOT further fine-tuned its highly competitive autonomous period to place three game pieces in under 15 seconds, resulting in consistently high-scoring wins with their partners.
As HOT progressed further into eliminations, a pair of unlucky matches with intense collisions caused the alliance some technical difficulties, which ultimately eliminated HOT from the division. Despite the loss, the HOT Team never failed to impress with their excellent design and performance. The team earned FIRST’s Quality Award, which recognizes the team’s robustness in design and fabrication.
With the state championship finished, the HOT Team qualified for the World Championships in Houston, Texas, from April 19th to 22nd. There, they will compete with hundreds of the best robotics teams from around the world to be the 2023 FIRST Champions. As the team continues to improve their design, strategy, and skill, the students are fired up to finish the season strong!
Article by Colin Dagg and Brooke Stec