After a long 6 weeks of designing, building, testing, and practicing, we arrived at the FRC Peachtree District Gainesville Qualifier Event with Rhonda, the Fernbank LINKS 2017 robot for FIRST Steamworks. Rhonda is a gear cycle and climbing robot with an pneumatic actuating coin slot gear mechanism and a velcro drum climber.

Rhonda and our drive team were very successful throughout the qualification matches, seeding 8th at the beginning of alliance selections. Our fantastic scouting team collected data from every qualification match and used it to create an objective pick list for the selection process. We began playoff matches as captain of the 5th seed alliance, partnered with team 1683 and team 5532. Our alliance made it to the tiebreaker in the quarterfinals. 

The LINKS marketing team was extremely successful as well. Our outreach efforts, mentoring, and 2 new apps got us the Gracious Professionalism Award. We are so thankful to our mentors, parents, and sponsors for helping us earn this award. The FRC Score app has reached nearly 500 installs as of 3/6/17! 

Also a huge congratulations to our lead programmer Jonathan Daniel for becoming a Dean’s List Semifinalist! He has worked so hard this season and accomplished so much. Good luck at state Jonathan!

Congratulations to the winning alliance, 832, 1648, and 1746 on the blue banners, 6325 Reset Robotics for winning Rookie All-Star, 1311 Kell Robotics for Chairmans, and 4188 Columbus Space Program for Engineering Inspiration. We are excited to see you all at the Peachtree District Championship!