Ratchet Rockers
Ratchet Rockers
Ratchet Rockers competed in the 2009 St. Louis Regional FIRST Robotics games against 35 other teams. They were selected by the top seeded alliance Team 71 from Hammond, Indiana and The Bomb Squad Team from Mountain Home, Arkansas. This was the first time the Ratchet Rockers were selected to compete in the finals. After the first game of the quarter finals the Ratchet Rocker robot was experiencing mechanical problems and had to be fixed between matches while in the queue. “Our alliance carried us through a couple of matches while these problems were fixed. Once we had started working our robot playing defense against teams 71 and 16 playing offense, our alliance proved to be a powerful we easily won the championship!”, mentor Darrell Wodrich commented.
In another first the Ratchet Rockers had to get busy planning a trip to Atlanta for the Inter-National Championship. “In Atlanta we would face the best of the best, 348 teams from all around the world. Once in Atlanta we competed in the Newton Division with 88 teams,” Wodrich added. “Although a very overwhelming experience, the Ratchet Rockers made it to Atlanta prepared and with a plan. In the span of a few hours the day of our practice matches, we transformed our robot to a mostly defensive machine, designed to push or block the best robots on the other team to allow our team mates to score on them. We also added a row of blinking LED’s to the front of the Robot to signal human players as needed.” Changes to the robot were successful, and unlike the St. Louis Regional the team did not encounter mechanical issues.
Mentor Darrell Wodrich added, “We didn’t do as well as we would have liked in Atlanta (2-5), but the experience was unbelievable. We walked away with a much better understanding of what to do this year to make us even more competitive. We now understand what is needed to prepare for competitions and we now expect to be perennial competitors. Can’t wait for 2010!”
Team Members
Joe Hoeing made captain of the 2009 team and this fall will be a freshman at the Missouri University of Science and Technology (formerly UM-Rolla), majoring in mechanical engineering.
Katelynn Burns and Ronnie Rossi were also on the team the following year and they will be seniors at Timberland High School this fall. Last summer, Katelynn went to a week-long engineering camp at Mizzou.
Jessica Duncan participated on the robotics team again and this fall she will start at Mizzou, majoring in journalism.
Eric Brooks and Justin Peabody were the co-captains of the 2008 season and seniors at Timberland. Eric will be starting his sophomore year at Central Missouri State, music major. Justin will be a sophomore at MU Science & Technology majoring in mechanical engineering. Both boys came back this past season to mentor the Ratchet Rockers.
Mentor Mike Herzberg will be a junior at MU Science & Technology, a mechanical engineering major. He mentored for the team again this past year.
