Twice as nice: Frazee's Kaotic Robotics team takes second straight state title

Though their 2019 competitive season had a bit of a rocky start, Frazee-Vergas High School's Kaotic Robotics team ended the year much as they did in 2018 - with their second consecutive Minnesota state championship.

By the time the two day Minnesota State High School League competition was completed this past Saturday, May 18, at the University of Minnesota's Williams Arena, Frazee was the last team standing out of 36 state qualifiers. Though they have been frequent competitors in the state event, this was only the second time they had made it that far.

"Our team has made it to state every year we've been in existence, since 2012," said Kaotic Robotics coach Andy Paulson, who is also the school's industrial technology teacher.

But it wasn't until last year that they claimed their first overall state title - despite the fact that the team competed in two consecutive FIRST Robotics world championships, in 2017 and 2018.

"The world championships are held before the state competition," Paulson explained, noting that Frazee did not get an invite to the world event this year.

"Last year we won both of our regional events, and at one point during the world championships, we were ranked number one," Paulson said - but unfortunately, the team just missed adding a world title to its collection. "We were upset."

The state championships were a different story, and the team ended the season ranked No. 1 in Minnesota - but for those who were thinking that momentum would carry over into 2019, it didn't quite work out that way.

"We lost both of our regional competitions," said Paulson. Still, the team managed to earn a No. 15 ranking - which was more than enough to send them to their second state championship.

"The top 36 teams go to state," Paulson said. "We did well enough (to get there)."

Some of the team's loss of momentum to start the season could be attributed to the fact that they lost several seniors to graduation last May - and with them, went quite a lot of competitive experience.

"We only had two seniors on our team this year," said Cory Erickson, Kaotic Robotics' lead driver for the season, which started in January.

In 2018, Cory was on the drive team, but the lead driver duties were the responsibility of his older brother Aaron, who graduated last May. Cory, who is just completing his sophomore year, will have two more seasons to compete - along with his fellow driver, Devan Nelson, who was also in 10th grade this year. Though they're excited to continue next year, they're also ready for a break.

"It was a long season," Erickson said.

"A lot of things didn't quite go our way," Nelson added.

In fact, even after they made it out of the state qualifying rounds with a 5-3 record, ranked 5th out of 36 teams, and advanced out of the semifinals with a 2-1 record, the final round of the state competition started out with a little more drama than they were expecting: Their robot's batteries died about halfway through the first match.

"For about half the match, we couldn't do anything," Nelson said.

The final task of the match was to park the robot on a 19-inch raised step, which would have been worth 12 points - but they couldn't even complete this simple feat, and lost the match, 82-80.

"If we could have gone back and parked, we would have won by one point," Erickson said - but the robot was unable to move at all.

Fortunately, the competition was a round-robin format, which meant that they would have two more chances to pull out the overall victory.

"We were able to get the robot fixed, and we didn't have any more issues," said Nelson.

Frazee won its final two matches, by the scores of 75-72 and 90-75, respectively, and finished the season with an overall record of 27 wins, 14 losses.

"It was a down year for us, heading into state, but it ended really well," Paulson summed up the season with a smile.

For those who would like to learn more about the team, please visit www.kaoticrobotics.org or www.thebluealliance.com (Frazee is Team 4539), as well as the team's Facebook page, Kaotic Robotics #4539, which has plenty of pictures and video from this past weekend's action at Williams Arena.