BY MARK NATALE
On April 14, the Trinity
Robotics team, Checkmate 40,
packed its trailer and started
the long drive down to Atlanta
to compete in the 2009 FIRST
World Championship in the
Georgia Dome along with 348
other teams from across the
world. Several members of the
team are from Bedford.
This is the fifth year in a
row Checkmate 40 made it to
the world championship, and it
was their most successful, making
it into the semifinals in its
division.
The team included driver
Joe Usenia, shooter Megan
Uberti, and human player Alex
Gadecki, as well as the team
mentor, Trinity physics teacher,
Joe Pouliot.
During the qualifying matches,
Trinity quickly realized that
it was among an elite class of
robots when their autonomous
mode (a 15-second portion of
the match in which the robots
are controlled by a computer
program and not the driver) was
one of just a few in the world
that could score points.
“Our autonomous was dead
on. We scored seven balls in the
first 15 seconds (every time),”
said Pouliot.
After finishing the qualifying
rounds in the tournament
with an impressive record of six
wins and one loss, Checkmate
40 was ranked sixth in its division,
allowing the team to be an
alliance captain (teams select an
alliance of two other partners
that they stay with for the rest
of the tournament) and select
what teammates it wanted to
compete with.
“We picked 1332 (Collbran,
Colo.) for offense and 1902
(Winter Park, Fla.) for defense,”
said shooter, Uberti, a senior.
Checkmate 40 won their
quarterfinal matches easily, 106-
92 and 91-70. However, the team
ran out of firepower when it
reached the semifinal matches
for the Galileo Division.
“The final matches are definitely
more intense than the
qualifying matches, but our mentors
remind us to treat them the
same and take it all one match at
a time,” said Uberti.
“We had our highest seed
ever (six out of 87 teams in the
division). We chose excellent
partners; we were just overwhelmed
by the (eventual) world
champions,” said Pouliot.
The semifinal finish was
the best finish that Checkmate
40 has ever had at the World
Championship and one of the
smoother competitions that Trinity
experienced this year.
“For once, our robot had
virtually no difficulties,” said
Uberti.