The Oyster River High School (ORHS) F.I.R.S.T. Robotics team, Team Overdrive #8410, concluded a memorable season filled with milestones and momentum.
Earlier in the season, on March 1-2, the team traveled to Salem, MA, to compete in the 2025 FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) alongside 35 other teams.
The team also competed on March 22-23 at the University of New Hampshire (UNH). They won the Innovation in Controls Award for a second time and qualified for the F.I.R.S.T. Dive New England District Championship for a second year in a row.
The F.I.R.S.T. New England District Championship was in Springfield, MA, April 2-5. This year marked the second time the ORHS team qualified to compete in the event.
Overall, the team ranked 16th in the division out of 48 teams. This is 21 places higher than the team’s final placement last year and gave the team 48 more district points. Combined with the 54 district points from the Salem competition and the UNH competition gave team Overdrive #8410 a total of 99 points and moved them from 81st in New England to the 57th position.
Team Coach Dan Couture said, “We’re incredibly proud of our performance. For context, the top 30 teams in New England qualify for the World Championship. This team continues to grow and evolve, and build on previous years' successes. I'm excited to see what's in store for us next year. Our team’s strengths outside the field are our attention to detail and debugging for things like match log analysis, identification of potential issues like increasing packet losses, maintaining the regimen of procedures, and most importantly, the support and collaboration between team members.”
Team Overdrive #8410 team members were at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Expo on May 2. They will be at Madbury's Community Day on June 7 and Durham's Community Day in late June.
To learn more about the team’s performance earlier in the season, please read this article.
NE F.I.R.S.T. published photographs of the competing event here.
The competing events offer many opportunities to troubleshoot and enhance the robot’s performance.