2023 CREATE U.S. Open Robotics Championship
by Haiden Magnussen
The Pierce High Robotics team competed in the 2023 CREATE U.S. Open Robotics Championship on Thursday-Saturday, March 23-25, in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The team competing was the 71414A also known as ATOM13. Members of this team were Travis Emory, Bode Hoffmann, Tate Reinke, Matthew Steffen, and Dalton Svoboda.
The U.S. Open has grown into one of the largest robotics tournaments before the VEX World Tournament. Teams qualify by winning awards at regular season tournaments from across the United States and Canada. Teams from the rest of the world are invited on a country-by-country basis.
“The experience was really enjoyable because we were able to meet people from several different countries and states,” says Steffen. “This competition was a great preparation for our world’s tournament later in April. I’m really looking forward to finishing our season and getting a new robot for world’s.”
All registered teams are randomly divided into four distinct tournaments in this multifaceted event. Teams from 44 states and seven countries competed.
71414A - ATOM13 qualified for this tournament by winning multiple awards at the O'Neill and State Tournaments. ATOM13 was part of the red division.
ATOM13 competed in the Skills event on Thursday. Teams are not required to compete, however, 132 out of the 160+ teams competed in Skills. The Skills portion is made up of two parts: autonomous score and driver score. ATOM13 had great runs in both and raised their season-high from 292 to 308, which placed them 11th out of the 132 competing in skills and now have the third best score in the state of Nebraska.
All teams competed in a total of 10 qualification matches with randomly assigned alliances all day Friday and Saturday morning. ATOM13 had seven matches on Friday and three on Saturday morning. Pierce had some great matches and some were a struggle because of alliance deficiencies. The team finished 6-4 for 20th place in the red division.
They were selected for an alliance for the tournament by the 14th place team from Grand Rapids, Michigan. The first match showed the potential for this alliance. They won 184-87 over an alliance from Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Marlborough, Massachusetts.
In the quarterfinals, the alliance took on a very talented fourth seed alliance from Redmond, Washington, and Sayre, Oklahoma.
ATOM13/Geared Up used great teamwork to win 184-142 sending them to the semifinal match. The opponent was the #1 seed, teams from Mitchell, South Dakota, and Hopkinsville, Kentucky, The #1 alliance proved to be too much to handle defeating ATOM13/Geared Up 192-149.
Head sponsor and coach Treva Dostal says, "This tournament was a great experience for our team. Team members took advantage of the opportunities to learn from many teams and the matches allowed the team to experiment with some different strategies in preparation for worlds coming up the last week in April."
The robotics team will next compete in the 2023 VEX Robotics World Championship in Dallas, Texas, at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, April 25-27.
