In late 2020, amidst the challenging backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, Team Linebreak (8546) emerged, founded by two ambitious high school students driven by a shared vision of fostering a small, student-led robotics team. Within a few short weeks of inception, the team swiftly grew to comprise 8 active members, supplemented by an additional 8 individuals enlisted to meet the minimum team size requirement. Operating out of a modest workshop generously provided by the family of one of our members and armed with a humble budget of $1500, our inaugural year was characterized by an unwavering commitment to learning and innovation. Dedication was paramount as countless hours were dedicated to deciphering schematics, mastering robot coding libraries, and crafting solutions from the limited resources at our disposal. A significant portion of our budget was allocated to team merchandise, including team branded t-shirts, and feeding our team members who devoted themselves to the cause, often investing up to 6 hours per day towards our collective goals.
The 2022 season was Linebreaks veteran rookie year in which they had a strong foundation and support for the future. With mixed skill levels and knowledge, the team worked swiftly to design, build, and code an amazing robot out of that humble garage. The rush was on for 11 weeks to get done in time for the upcoming regional. As a result of the team's hard work, they went to the Idaho Regional with a great build ready to beat out the competition. The team ended up ranked 19th out of the 28 teams at the event. This was a big accomplishment for the team as it was only our veteran rookie year. With a rank like that, we were looking to be a top-second pick. This came true when the number one alliance of Team Tators and Peninsula Robotics picked us to form the winning alliance. After winning the Idaho Regional, the team got the amazing opportunity to go to the World Championship in Houston, Texas.
After coming off a euphoric high from the 2023 season, we were determined to keep momentum going into the offseason. However, we were faced with a problem: 5 of our 7 members were seniors, leaving 2 juniors to recruit and rebuild Linebreak. Throughout the offseason, we achieved a lot. We attended Bordie Charged in Bellevue, Washington, and recruited nearly 10 new people to the team while acquiring multiple corporate and local sponsors. This money went towards the rising Crescendo season, as our robot budget was increased to approximately $1600 and our general budget was opened to attend the notoriously difficult Silicon Valley Regional in San Jose, CA. Although our recruiting generated team growth, we still had only one dedicated CADer, programmer, and electrician placing significant strain on robot creation. Regardless, we persevered, creating a robot in team record time, allowing multiple hours of programming and practice before our first competition. And in classic FIRST Robotics fashion, a lot went wrong. Blizzard conditions on the way there mixed with airbnb issues caused our team to miss load-in the night of the competition. The next day was filled with small successes, but also mechanical, electrical, and programming failure. One of our mentors had a medical emergency during this time, and we had additional issues with another one of our mentors leading to strife and a general lack of time to fix our robot during the competition. As we started the long drive back home, we pondered what had gone wrong. Excited to prepare for the Idaho Regional, we were ready to bounce back and show off the true capability of our bot. And that we did, our robot performed well at the Idaho Regional, placing us as a second pick to the wonderful Buhlean Operators and Ten Ton Robotics to which we advanced through playoffs before unfortunately running into further issues with outdated components that led to us reaching the two loss threshold three matches in. In hindsight, this season was important to us. Our current team model is still in the works, but as we enter the 2025 offseason we are motivated to further define our structure and prove to the world that our team run purely by students is capable of having an impact beyond FIRST Robotics.
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