By Robert Williams

Editor

In the opening week of competition, the Frazee-Vergas #4539 KAOTIC Robotics team captured the Northern Minnesota Robotics Conference championship, placed second at a follow-up open tournament and had the Team Member of the Year in Aiden King, the Mentor/Coach of the Year in Eric Shaefer and also earned the coveted Team Spirit award in Brainerd Oct. 24-25.

“We had a good weekend,” said Schaefer. “The ones that mean the most are the teammate of the year because that only happens to two seniors,” said Schaefer. “You have one opportunity to do it and this year was really tough. The two that we had—you look at their resume and they’re the exact same person.”

King was nominated by two different coaches to earn the Team Member of the Year award.

“The Team Member and Team Spirit awards are big to me,” Schaefer said. “Team Spirit isn’t about people standing in the stands and cheering about it. That’s not it, at all.”

KAOTIC members are used to awards and winning. In their last competition of 2024-25 at the Iowa Regional in March they earned the Team Spirit award.

“The reason we won it here is the same reason we won it in Iowa,” Schaefer said. “Even when things are going wrong you still show up and have a smile on your face. You’re still cheering other teams on and helping everybody else. We have our own problems but what do you need?”

Schaefer credited driver Madison Boyer for her contributions to the conference title.

“Good driving, smart driving—the robot didn’t always work but it did when it counted,” he said. “Other people saw that it worked when it should. Sometimes the best offense is a good defense and we played really good defense. She’s smart and a very good driver. She did a bang-up job.”

For Schaefer, the first place plaques are great but the non-robot awards have more meaning to him and the team.

“Those mean more to me than that blue banner and that plaque because that means my kids are going to be more productive when they get out of this program,” said Schaefer. “It’s part of the culture we try to instill here.”

Officially, the Spirit award recognizes a team’s unmatched energy and positivity, even when challenges come their way. Mentor/Coach of the Year is voted upon by peers. For Schaefer, it’s all about the team as a group.

“I can’t do it by myself; Aiden can’t do it by himself; Clare (Schaefer) can’t do it by herself,” said Schaefer. “It takes a village to do it all.”

The team already held their annual fundraiser and were thankful to area residents and business members who helped fund their program, especially the group of corporate sponsors.

“Big shoutout to the community for showing up for that,” Schaefer said. “That funds a majority of the team for the year. If it wasn’t for things like we did at the Event Center here or the corporate sponsors that we have we couldn’t do it. We just couldn’t do it. We can’t thank the community enough for the years of support.”

This season is the 13th for the robotics team and the ninth year in the Northern Minnesota Robotics Conference. In that nine-year stretch, KAOTIC won five championships (2017, 2019, 2023-25), placed second twice (2018, 2020) and added a third place finish in 2021.

This year, KAOTIC managed a victory despite beginning outside of the top six teams, thus missing a first round bye given to the top two teams. While the bottom four teams battled it out, KAOTIC hitched a ride as the second pick of the top-ranked #5913 Pequot Lakes Patriots and #5653 Iron Mosquitoes to form a winning alliance.

“Go interrupt the other team; that’s the job of defense and we did exactly that,” said Schaefer.

However, a first round loss sent the team to the lower bracket.

“In true KAOTIC fashion, we never win going through the top bracket,” Schaefer said. “It just doesn’t happen that way.”

Then came three consecutive wins to advance to the finals.

“Our driver shook the nerves out on the first one,” Schaefer said. “It’s a different atmosphere when you get into the elimination playoffs. She shut down a team for almost the entire match. She went and knocked it out of the park.”

The finals are best two out of three matches. 

“The team we played in the finals was the first team that beat us,” said King.

That alliance was made up of teams from Grand Forks and Nevis, alliance members chosen by Perham. KAOTIC dropped the opening match 126-124.

“We didn’t change any of our strategy at all,” Schaefer said. “The sync of our driver to what they were trying to do just meshed in our favor quite a bit more than it did for them.”

Former KAOTIC Coach Andy Paulson stepped away from robotics this year. He had been the coach of the #3297 Perham Full Metal Jackets up until this season after leaving Frazee in 2022.

KAOTIC flipped the script in the final two matches winning 120-89 and 148-94.

“With good defense that’s what happens,” said Schaefer.

“The reason they got so high in that first match was we were not functional for the whole match,” King said. “We were kind of a sitting duck.”

The level of frustration with a non-functional robot is directly related to what the actual problem is.

“It depends on what the issue is with the robot,” said King. “I try to look at the logs, figure out what’s going on before it goes out. Usually, it’s called the roboreel and that gets power cycled. We were having an issue with that.”

The robot was stalled for approximately 35 seconds as operators waited for the roboreel to turn back on. 

“Usually, it’s just a matter of getting right back into it after that,” King said.

At the same time, Schaefer relays the information to the other coaches and teams.

“For us, dead for almost 40 seconds, it was still that close,” Schaefer said.

“There’s a lot going through your head; a lot of it is just the process of elimination trying to figure out why it did it, but you also have to think of how soon you can get back going and what to do as soon as you get back moving,” said King.

The next two weeks will be spent tearing down the old robot and cleaning drive modules and motors. They will be put back together and the team will build a new robot from the ground up.

A teambuilding camp is also planned prior to the next competition. 

For more information on the team visit: www.kaoticrobotics.org – the site also includes links to the team’s social media sites.