The game was FIRST Overdrive®. It could be said that our team went into overdrive this year! A brilliant robot design from one of the students quickly became “Zeus”. The design included a simple but very effective four-bar linkage to quickly raise the 40” track ball over the overpass. We used Mecanum wheels for the first time and had great success. The extraordinary design earned us the Motorola Quality Award at both the Minnesota Regional and St. Louis Regional. At the St. Louis Regional we were ranked #4 with a record of 9-3-1. We partnered with 2044 and 2062. In March we traveled to Minneapolis for the inaugural Minnesota Regional. Our robot performed beautifully, and with a great team of students, was undefeated with a record of 15-0-0. We won the first regional held in Minnesota, partnering with teams 93 and 2518. That win earned us a unique one of a kind blue banner. We were the #2 seed in the Archimedes Division at the Championship Event in Atlanta and selected team 27 and our Minnesota Regional friends from Wisconsin – team 93 to join us in the final rounds. We made it to the semi-final round. To top off the awards the team earned, John Deere Senior Staff Engineer and Swartdog mentor, Bruce Newendorp, was recognized with the Minnesota Regional Woodie Flowers Finalist Award. Bruce joined the team in its second year back in 2001.