Monadnock 4-H Robotics “Team Inconceivable” ended their 2026 season with a strong showing at the FIRST Robotics New England District Championships in West Springfield, Mass., last weekend.
Team member Tre Patterson said the team was thrilled to have gotten as far as they did, and to have achieved their 2026 season goal of qualifying for District Championships.
“We were really hopeful we would get picked for the elimination round, we got picked by the second seeded team, and we went all the way to finals, and we almost won,” Patterson said.
Team member Jacob Wyman said the team came “very close” to winning the finals.
“We ended up losing the finals, but just barely, and it wasn’t due to the robot. We were playing defense, and I was the driver, and I had never played defense, and we had some cycles where we didn’t score anything because we had defense being played against us, and that cost us,” Wyman said.
Team mentor Andres Wood said the team had a solid competition season.
“We came out of competitions in Bedford and UVM with just enough points to make it to the New England District Championships. We went with no expectations, and we did ok, and we had a lot of fun,” Woods said.
Wyman said the team’s extensive testing of their competition robot, “Glados,” “really paid off.”
“We really were one of the most consistent teams there,” Wyman said. “I am very proud of how we did. One of the biggest themes of our team has been lack of consistency; we’ve had some issues with electrical and mechanical in other years, but this year, we played really well in every match we played. We had a few small issues, but we were able to fix everything pretty quickly.”
Team Inconceivable includes Wyatt, of Chesterfield, who is Team Captain; Tre Patterson of Sharon; Christian and Isaac Witham, of Antrim; James Bean, of Chesterfield; and Alexander Brand of Peterborough.
The team missed out on going to the FIRST Robotics World Championship in Houston by just two slots, but team members say they are “ok with it.”
“We had a pretty successful season, and the robot did really well. Our goals for the season starting out were to build a robot that would win an award, and we won two mechanical awards; and to get into a finals match, so we accomplised all our goals. This is a really good robot, and we’re very happy with it,” Patterson said.
At the District Championships, the team was awarded the Creativity Award for the design of their 2026 competition robot, “Glados.”
“They gave us an award for the rotating escape hatch we built in the bottom to release the fuel when there is a buildup,” Wyatt said. “We are probably the only robot in the world that has put in this modification. The judges said they had never seen it or heard about anything like it before.”
Wyman said one of the teams’s strengths is their constant tweaking of the robot’s design.
“There is a check-in table you have to go to whenever you change the design, and we were in that line more than anyone,” he said.
The team faced some challenges at the District championship, including a hairy moment when “the front loader fell off.”
“Our ‘pit crew’ fixed it in two minutes,” Wyatt said. “We were able to pop it off and get it back up and working for the next match. I’m proud of that fix, because we did it in about 15 minutes.”
On March 13-14, the team competed at the Granite State District Event in Bedford, where they won the “Quality Award” for “robot precision and durability.”
On April 3-4, the team competed at the University of Vermont District Event in Burlington, Vt., where they were awarded the Imagery Award for “attractiveness in engineering and outstanding visual aesthetic integration of machine and team appearance.”
Team Inconceivable, which is the only FIRST robotics team in the southwest corner of the state, will be moving out of its practice space next month and is in the process of looking for a new space.
Wood said while the competition season is over, the team has plenty to keep them busy until next fall.
“We have a lot going on. We’ll be moving to a new workshop space, we have demonstrations coming up, we may be looking to merge with another team, and we always have projects to be done,” Woods said.
“We want to rebuild some of the old robots,” Patterson said.
Team Inconceivable is a non-profit 4-H club serving teens in grades 7-12 from across the Monadnock region. The team is actively seeking new members.
“Anyone with an interest in robotics and buildings things should check us out. It is a great group and a lot of fun, especially the competitions,” Wood said.
For more information about Monadnock 4-H Robotics Team Inconceivable , go to team1729.org.
