2008/2009 was a year of success for Team Spyder, as the year began we didn’t have a wave of new members instead we gained several dedicated freshman, that quickly entered training for the upcoming season. They moved to key areas of our team and gained experience that not only helped the team at competitions, but will allow them to train future freshman. For instance, Katie Young, a diligent young teenager, worked under Andrew Lindsay on the website providing desperately needed contributions in that department. As the build season approached, the Engineering team worked fervently on learning to model parts in professional Engineering programs, such as SolidWorks and Pro|Engineer. The Electrical team practiced programming in preparation for the upcoming build season, while our Safety specialists, led by Senior Lindsay Jacobson, prepared a Safety binder to prepare our Safety Cadets for the rigors of pit building at the competitions.
The game of 2009 “First Lunacy” created a challenge for the Engineering and Strategy teams. We thought about drastically altering the main chassis with a new drivetrain to give our team a competitive advantage on the special low friction surface for this year’s game. Our decision instead was that our best interest was to focus on the scoring system rather than the drivetrain. This produced an innovative scoring system that led us to be in the Top 3 of scoring at every regional. While our Engineering team produced an excellent scoring machine, the Electrical team, not only wired our complex robot but programmed a few excellent autonomous modes that gave our robot a decisive advantage at the competitions. Our unique Scouting system, set up by mentor Nick Stark and diligently upgraded, by junior Andrew Lindsay, to meet the new game specifications, also gave our team a competitive edge. Matt Baker led a dynamically changing team of seven that recorded, organized, and transmitted up to date data to our Drive team in the pit and on the field.
At the San Diego Regional, our innovative robot was highly competitive and plowed its way to second seed going into the Championship rounds. We were selected for the number one seeded alliance by Team 256, the Cheesy Poofs, and destroyed the competitions in our Quarter-Final match. However, in the Semi-Finals our powerful alliance was defeated by a powerful defensive team, led by Miss Daisy, an experienced Eastern competitor. Their defensive efforts were spear-headed by Titan-Bot, a local San Diego team, whose robot’s unique torque locked down Team 256 and prevented half of our scoring power. Miss Daisy’s alliance went on to defeat the number two seed and win the Regional. Our robot’s powerful design was however credited as we received the Motorola quality award, signifying our robot’s effectiveness on the field and quality of construction.
The following Regional was set in Las Vegas, were we soared to the number two seed once again a step behind the Cheesy Poofs. However, this time our team opted to select the number three alliance, Team 987, the High Rollers, and a team they knew well, Team Phoenix from Arizona. At this Regional, Team Spyder was not to be stopped! After winning some hard fought games for the Quarter and Semi-Finals, in the Finals we found ourselves facing not an alliance led by team 256, but the Beach-Bots alliance, led by team 330, a powerful local San Diego team, whom we knew well. After three hard fought Finals matches, Team Spyder finally got to walk the aisle to the “We are the Champions” music and received a Regional Championship banner and trophy. Not only did we lead the winning alliance, Team Spyder continued our Safety legend to a third year and picked up another Engineering award.