In the past month, the Krypton Cougars competed in 2 offseason tournaments, the Duel on Delaware and Havoc, and took home three first place trophies. 

At the Duel on Delaware on October 14th, the Krypton Cougars allied with their second robot and another team, victoriously placing first at the tournament with a match record of 10-2. 

Havoc took place the very next week on October 21st, and the team won first once again with a match record of 12-2. 

At off-season tournaments, teams have the opportunity to enter a second robot into the competition, and the Krypton Cougars took advantage of this. 

“.. you’ll be the main team, but you’ll build a second robot to keep the team busy,” said Matthew Milunic, a junior on the team. 

This preparation goes a long way, as the team will be ready for when the season starts. 

“During the first twenty matches, teams are randomly assigned. They score ranking points based on their success within these matches.” said Milunic. 

Being a top team in terms of ranking points qualifies them for alliance captain. 

“At Duel, there was a weird alliance selection, since there weren’t enough teams, they made a modified selection, so they made 6 instead of 8” said Anshi Paul, programmer and Strategy Lead. 

Alliance section is a critical component to success, as teams need to have detailed prior knowledge of other teams in order to choose good alliance partners, be it as a captain or as one being chosen.

“We had students building the second robot, so they got the skills to build those… and we were only knocked out by ourselves at elimination… it’s definitely really important, so we go to a lot of them.” Paul said. 

The next offseason competition is Ramp Riot, which is on November 4th and takes place at Wissahickon High School.