From July 18th to the 19th, Texas Torque competed in the 15th annual Indiana Robotics Invitational, an off-season “All-Star” event held in Indianapolis, IN. We were thrilled to have participated as one of the top 68 teams competing from all across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. We were especially pleased to see Texas so well represented, with a delegation of six robots that included 118 The Robonauts, 148 The Robowranglers, 624 CRyptonite, 1477 Texas Torque, 1817 RoboRaiders, and 2468 Team Appreciate.

Qualification rounds began on Friday, in which Texas Torque competed in six matches. During the qualifications Texas Torque suffered a wide variety of mechanical malfunctions, leading to losses in four of our six matches. However, due to the quick thinking of our pit-crew, Texas Torque was able to fix and overcome these difficulties and go on to win matches 34 and 62. Match 62 in particular was a great testament to our abilities, because along with alliance partners 118 and 51, Texas Torque was able to win the match with the highest score of the entire competition (335).

On Saturday Texas Torque completed our final three qualification rounds, with a 1-2 record. With this mind, Texas Torque went on to prepare for alliance selection. In the second round of selection, Texas Torque was invited to join the 5th seed alliance, in which we were happy to have joined up with teams 2175 The Fighting Calculators, 368 Team Kika Mana, and 233 The Pink Team for the elimination portion of the competition. We were also glad to see our fellow Texas teams 118, 148, and 624 make it into the eliminations portion of competition.

In a heart-pounding first quarterfinal match, the fifth seeded alliance (playing 2175, 368, and 1477) lost to the fourth seeded alliance 153-322. The fifth seeded alliance (playing 2175, 368, and 233) then lost the second nerve-wracking quarterfinal match to the fourth seeded alliance 207-321, eliminating our alliance from the competition.

Texas Torque is grateful for the opportunity to compete against some of the best teams in the FIRST Robotics Competition, as well as to have had such a great learning opportunity to prepare the team for the upcoming build season. We would like to thank teams 45 TechnoKats, 234 Cyber Blue, and 1024 Kil-A-Bytes for hosting such the event, as well as Indiana FIRST for organizing and streaming the competition. We would also like to congratulate teams 2056, 469, 1625, and 4039 for winning this years IRI competition, with a special shout out to the third member of the winning alliance, 1625, whom we had the pleasure of partnering with earlier this year.