Minnetonka High School - Robotics Competition

My name is Nick Bahr and I represent Minnetonka High School's FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) team, Team 3082 Chicken Bot Pie.

FRC is a competition in which high schoolers all over the country have 3-4 months to build a robot that performs best in a competition announced in January every year. Through FRC, aspiring engineers can build hands-on experience both in their area of interest and in working on a team.

This year, the game involves two alliances of three robots competing to grab traffic cones and beach-ball cubes, take them back to their side of the field, and place them on a stair-like structure to score points. They also get bonus points for balancing on a teeter-totter. For a more comprehensive overview, I'd recommend checking out the animation FIRST showed us at the start of the season here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zpflsYc4PA

Our team is not only committed to building the most competitive robot that we can but also to fostering a positive and inclusive atmosphere to promote STEM in our community by building future leaders in science and tech. Since recovering from the COVID shutdown, our team is composed of 70% underclassmen. This season we as senior members have been working hard to train and get them involved in the robot-making process so that they can get the experience needed to carry the torch after we leave. If you'd like to learn more you can check out our website team3082.com. I would personally recommend the photo gallery.

This past March, we competed at two regionals: MN North Star Regional and MN 10,000 Lakes Regional presented by Medtronic. You can watch our matches here: Chicken Bot Pie - Team 3082 - The Blue Alliance.

10,000 Lakes Regional Finals Match: https://youtu.be/UIa00BxfwAQ

At both regionals, we had the opportunity to play in the playoffs. At the Minnesota North Star Regional, we were alliance captains and at 10,000 Lakes we were the first pick of the 7th-seeded alliance. At both competitions we pulled off many upsets, beating alliances ranked higher than us!

This is the best the team has performed in team history, with a total of two playoff appearances, the Innovation in Control Award, the “Best Defense Robot” Award, 10,000 Lakes Regional Finalists, and even being selected as a Wildcard for the FIRST World Championships!

We have been very fortunate to have amazing support from our corporate sponsors and our school district to make all of this possible and we couldn't have gotten to this point without this help! To make the trip to Houston, Texas World Championships possible, we are asking for help to cover the costs of student travel and lodging. We are trying to raise $20,000 for student lodging and transportation.