Team Ferradermis traveled to LaCrosse from Wednesday, April 4, through Saturday, April 7, to compete in the Seven Rivers Regional FIRST Robotics Competition. This was the team’s second scheduled regional of the year after winning the Wisconsin Regional in Milwaukee in late March. The LaCrosse competition featured 53 teams from 5 states (Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Missouri). Competition was stiff and the team did not make the playoffs, but the team’s robot performed well and can now complete several tasks in the game that it could not successfully do in Milwaukee, including shooting a “power cube” onto the 7-foot-high scale in the center of the arcade and delivering a cube to the switch in autonomous mode. These new “skills” will serve the robot well in the next level of competition! Students were also involved in a variety of other tasks in LaCrosse. Bennett Miles and Zach Brantmeier participated in the Dean’s List interviews and Cassi Hoxie, Maribel Pena, and Mina Truesdale gave their Chairman’s Award presentation to a panel of judges, while Gwynne Sahyun served as Ambassador and gave tours to VIPs and Gabe Schemmel and Jakob Klawitter took turns in the mascot costume. The team demonstrated gracious professionalism at every possible opportunity after so many teams had helped us in Milwaukee, helping rookie teams with scouting data and sharing equipment, parts, knowledge, and skills with other teams at every opportunity.

The team is currently fundraising for its trip to Detroit for the FIRST Championships from April 24 through April 29. If you would like to help support the team financially, there are two options.

1. On Monday, April 16, from 5:00 pm until 8:00 pm, the team will be hosting a China House Night. China House will donate a percentage of their receipts to the team during that timeframe.
2. The school district has established a PayPal donation system for the team which can be accessed at http://www.whs.wwusd.org/page/4753 or at ferradermis.org.

Don’t forget to follow the team on Facebook at facebook.com/Ferradermis. If you have electrical, mechanical, CAD, or programming experience and are interested in helping mentor the team next season, please contact Laura Masbruch at lmasbruch@wwusd.org.