WARREN, Mich. – Last Saturday, De La Salle Collegiate’s robotics team, the AutoPilots, had to overcome a few setbacks during the Michigan districts at the FIRST Robotics Competition at Macomb Community College.

The AutoPilots, in their second year in FIRST – For Inspiration and Recognition of Science of Technology – had a rough start Friday when the robot’s lifter was torn off.

With the lifter fixed, De La Salle and its alliance headed into Saturday with a 4-5 record in qualification matches. But more bad luck followed Saturday morning when the AutoPilots lost connection to the robot’s drive controls and a rotation rod snapped.

“It was a roller coaster weekend with robot malfunctions, broken parts, and matches won and lost,” AutoPilots moderator Rob Black said.
  

Still, the AutoPilots managed to qualify for Saturday afternoon’s playoff matches with a 6-6 mark.

De La Salle’s squad of Nathan Arnold, Ethan Arun, Minseok Bae, Jeremiah Chambers, David Chomicz, Joshua Cichoracki, Ryan Hensley and Suheum Heo finished with an 11-8-0 overall record for the two-day competition, and 5-2-0 in the playoffs. 

“Our team was picked to be on the top-seated alliance and made it all the way to the finals,” Black said. “Our alliance lost in the last few seconds of the third of the best-of-three match. 

“This is a tremendous accomplishment for our team and sets us up to possibly make it to states in April.”  

The AutoPilots will be back in action later this month in the FIM District at Center Line High School, March 19-21.