This past Saturday, a masked up and socially distanced Team 930 gathered in the Mukwonago High School commons to tune in to the FIRST live stream with other teams around the world to see what the 2021 season had in store for us. We had already known the 2020 Infinite Recharge game would make it’s appearance again in 2021 due to the number of teams that were unable to participate last year due to the COVID lockdowns. During the kickoff stream, we finally learned how FIRST planned on adapting the competition to allow for teams to compete even if they are not allowed to attend competitions due to travel restrictions. 3 new competitions have been introduced this year, and Team 930 is excited to dive into two of them.

Game Design Challenge
FIRST has challenged teams to design their own FIRST Robotics Competition season. This challenge goes beyond just giving suggestions. Teams will need to thoroughly think out their ideas and create a detailed pitch which will be submitted to judges. Winning game designs will advance to additional rounds of judging with teams able to pitch the best designs directly to the lead game designers at FIRST HQ and elements of their game may be used in future seasons.
Infinite Recharge At-Home
The agility, accuracy, and speed of the robot in both autonomous and teleop (driver controlled) mode will be put to the test by a series of 5 challenges that we can complete right here at the high school. Unlike prior years, each challenge will pit us against a unique group of up to 30 teams from around the world.

An example of one of the speed and agility teleop challenges.

The team has jumped into action making significant changes to our robot based on its performance in 2020. We are excited to build on what we learned so we can continue to compete at a high level. Stay tuned to future newsletters to see updates on how the team is progressing!