By 2005, the students who started the team in 2002 had become experienced seniors, and had learned many valuable lessons during the previous 3 seasons. Instead of only going to just one regional, SVR, we also went to the Sacramento Regional in Davis, CA. Their previous robots were basically boxes made of aluminum pieces attached together with various manipulators mounted on it. These robots worked, they just didn’t perform that well.
The team went with a slightly different approach in 2005. They adopted a welded aluminum box tubing frame, and a 6 wheel drop center drive train. The manipulator was incredibly simple, just a long arm with a hook, powered by a very geared down CIM motor, designed to do one thing: lift and move giant tetrahedrons.
At the Sacramento Regional, we did incredibly well, placing high in the ranks for the first time in our team’s existence. We advanced to the eliminations thanks to Team 245, who placed first and picked us as their first pick. Thanks to our amazing alliance partners, Teams 245 and 1072, we won the Sacramento Regional, our first win in the First Robotics Competition. At nationals, our team seeded highly again, and Team 245 picked us as their second pick. With Teams 245 and 217, we won the Archimedes Division, and advanced to Einstein Division. On Einstein field we won one match, and narrowly lost our second two matches to the alliance that went on to win the world championships.
