Ladies of Nemesis Rock girlPOWER
It was still dark out when team Nemesis 2590 hit the road headed for Mount St. Joseph Academy, Flourtown, PA, for the annual offseason event, girlPOWER. This one day event had been a relaxing and pleasurable event in the past; with an expected 15 teams to compete, Nemesis was looking forward to the journey to come. After two practices a week for a month and a half, Nemesis’ female drivers, Constance Mehl and Kaitlyn Young, were ready to take Eris into battle. Upon arrival, Nemesis was greeted with good spirit and to their satisfaction, a working robot. The day was shaping up to be a successful and memorable experience.
girlPOWER is a time for girls to bond together and show themselves and each other what they are made of. The ladies of Nemesis love their chance to take the field. In fact, Julia Ruch, a Nemesis marketing senior executive was ‘lent’ to the Lunatecs as their human player for the day. Ruch loved her time in the spotlight, “Having the opportunity to play with another team allowed me to experience the true meaning of gracious professionalism, and coopertition, two idea that FIRST strongly promotes. I felt honored and totally humbled to be able to witness my team preform from a different lens, while collaborating with new friends on new alliances, whom were all there to support women in STEM, an issue I feel very passionately about. “
The first practice match started and Nemesis took a turn for the worst, crashing into the airship during autonomous mode, leaving Eris dead for the remainder of the match. Having faced defeat, the team hurried to fix the radio which had been knocked out of place. Over the course of the first couple of matches Nemesis faced a rocky start; however, with the help of quick thinking, strategizing, and a positive attitude, Nemesis found their way into the 9th seed for alliance selection.
Picked by the 2nd seed alliance captain, 203 (One TUFF TEAM) and allied with team 316 (Lunatecs), Nemesis took the field for eliminations. Fighting their way through the round robin, Nemesis’ alliance successfully defeated all of their opponents. One match in particular shall be remembered in Nemesis girlPOWER history. With a successful autonomous routine and a single gear from the human player station, an alliance member ejected three gears adjacent to the peg for Nemesis to efficiently mount on the peg, and ended the match with a climb with time to spare. However, as finals approached, Nemesis’ climber hit rock bottom. As the team scurried to fix the broken robot, the driver prepared for the finals matches to come.
During the first finals match, Nemesis faced technical issues, preventing Eris from achieving the climb. After the unfortunate loss, Nemesis faced the the second finals match with full of hope, desperate to stay in the game. During in the last few seconds, horror struck as the peg got stuck in the robot and Eris was unable to make the final climb. Connor Hofenbitzer, team Nemesis 2590 programmer, voiced “I feel the first-time drivers really played top notch, they should be very proud of their performance”.
