Ferradermis traveled to the FIRST Robotics Northern Lights Regional in Duluth, Minnesota from Wednesday, March 6, through Sunday, March 10, competing with and against 59 other teams from Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Sweden.

On Wednesday night, while a small crew did setup at the arena, the remainder of the team visited the civil engineering labs at the University of Minnesota Duluth and participated in several demonstrations before enjoying a team dinner at Sammy’s Pizza.

Following a practice day on Thursday, the team competed in 9 qualification matches on Friday and Saturday, ending with a record of 5-4 and ranking 22nd out of the 60 teams. Although the team was not drafted into an alliance for the playoffs, their high ranking placed them on a list of bots put on standby for replacements for any disabled robots in the playoffs. The team had planned to travel home Saturday at the end of the competition but ended up spending an extra night in Duluth due to the weather.

Thank you to our many local sponsors for supporting the team. To see more photos from the competition, visit the team’s page on Facebook at facebook.com/Ferradermis.