MegaHertz claims silver, excellence award at Double DECCer

DULUTH — The Fairmont High School Robotics Team, The MegaHertz, competed in the Double DECCer from March 4 to March 7 in Duluth.

The event hosts two regional competitions in one venue with 84 teams from Minnesota, California, Illinois, Hawaii, and Shanghai, China.

The MegaHertz from Fairmont played in the Lake Superior Regional at the event in a field of 42 teams, ranking third after qualification rounds on Friday and Saturday. During alliance selection, they were drafted to join the #2 alliance in the play-off bracket.

This #2 alliance consisted of the MegaHertz, Full Metal Jackets from Perham, Stampede from Minneapolis, and a back up robot, the MinuteBots from St. Paul.

The team learned perseverance after experiencing mechanical difficulties which kept their pit crews scrambling between matches to keep their machines operational, often finishing robot tune-ups with seconds to spare.

After defeating the #7 alliance in the first play-off round, the MegaHertz alliance fell to the #3 alliance in the semi-finals sending them to the lower bracket. From there, they defeated the #5 and #4 alliances, and avenged their earlier loss to the #3 alliance.

This put the Fairmont alliance into the best of three finals where they defeated the #1 alliance in the first match, but lost the second and third matches to place second in the competition.

Fairmont Robotics design process and presentation skills won the Excellence in Engineering Award which recognizes the team whose machine best “incorporates an engineering solution designed to have components work together seamlessly.”

The robotics team’s next competition will be from March 25 to March 28 at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

The team is coached by Sam Viesselman, Aaron Perkins, Logan Kahler, Cindy Viesselman, Celia Viesselman, Bryan Kastning, Sam Cave, Kelly Perkins, Aaron Hendricks, Missy Olson and Crystal Jerred.