Kraken Pinion competes at world championships

The Homestead High school robotics team competed at the FTC (First Technical Challenge) world championships last weekend in Detroit, Michigan, which consisted of just over 6,000 teams. The Homestead robotics squad titled “Kraken Pinion” was placed in the Edison division (one of two) of the competition. More often than not, the top teams are divided amongst the two divisions. Instead, Kraken Pinion had ten of the top ten ranked robotics teams in the world accompanying them in the Edison division. While the team had a tough task ahead of them, they all had motivation to make it to the finals competition in Ford Field to compete in front of roughly 10,000 spectators.

Throughout the divisional rounds, Kraken Pinion faced many highs and lows. Among them: breaking a world record (which only lasted about 90 minutes) and and many near defeats in matches. But, they came out of the divisional rounds with a perfect record of 9-0. Unfortunately, so were four other teams. This meant that the elimination round rankings would come down to tie breaker points, which put the Homestead squad in the second ranking going into the elimination rounds of the competition.

As the lead captain of the second alliance, Kraken Pinion chose a alliance team member from Denver, IN, with a female driver by the name of “The Hammer”. Also, Kraken Pinion chose a team named Weapons of mass destruction, which is a familiar alliance member to the Homestead team. There were many challenges along the way in the elimination rounds, but Kraken Pinion’s alliance was able to make the final match of the Edison division. If the team wins this best of three match, then the Kraken Pinion’s alliance will have an opportunity in the world finals at the Ford Field stadium. The match started off well with the first win going to Kraken Pinion and company. But, went immediately downhill as the team lost the next two games to lose the series.

Although the team did not get to compete in the world finals at Ford Field, they were nominated for the Inspire award. This is the most prestigious award in the robotics competition. You need to have an all around robot that fills all six categories of judgment well in order to even be nominated for this award, so this is a great accomplishment for Homestead robotics team.