Team Inconceivable will be heading to the New England First District Championship in Springfield, Mass., this weekend, where their 95-pound robot Sylvester will be put to a major test.

The Peterborough-based team has been designing Sylvester since January, and made the semifinals in two district events, the North Shore Event, where they won the Best Imagery award; and an event at the University of New Hampshire, where they won Best Autonomous Programming. On Sunday night, they learned they  had qualified for the district championship, which runs from Thursday until Saturday and will include 90 teams from surrounding states.

The team “worked super, super hard to get there,” said Brighid Wood, who runs the 4-H team program with her husband Andre at MAXT Makerspace. Team members include middle- and high-school students. Some members are from the ConVal district, while others come from towns as far as Chesterfield and Swanzey. 

Every year, there is a new game and teams have to design and program their robots for specific challenges. At the event this year, the robots will be asked to complete a series of tasks that include balancing on a rocking table with other robots and racing on teams of three across a basketball-court-sized arena to pick up game pieces like inflatable tubes and traffic cones and carry them back to assigned locations. For example, the cones will have to go on pegs of varying heights, and the goal is to get three in a row. 

Wood said the game will require communicating with teammates, and she said some teams will choose to play defense, so Sylvester has been outfitted with bumpers and they’ll bring along a tool kit in case they have to make repairs.

There’s a lot to plan for, and on Monday night, the team was working to fine-tune Sylvester to make sure he’s at peak performance this weekend. If the team makes top 32, it will be selected to attend the World Championships in Houston April 19 to 22.

“It’s really amazing what they’ve been able to accomplish,” Wood said. 

The registration fee for the First District Championship is $4,000, and Wood said on top of ordering lunches for the team and hotel costs, it’s expensive, so they are holding a raffle to raise funds. People can purchase a ticket for $20 or three for $50 up until Saturday, when they’ll have a live drawing on Facebook for a $500 top prize. Raffle tickets can be  bought through Venmo @Team_Inconceivable.

]]>