Fairmont High School Robotics Team 4th at State

The Minnesota State High School League Robotics Tournament was held in St Paul at Concordia College, Gangelhoff Center, on Saturday. The MSHSL began hosting robotics tournaments in 2012 and has remained a single class tournament regardless of school size for the state’s approximately 200 FIRST robotics teams. The game is played by two alliances made up of 3 teams each playing in 3 vs 3 matches. Teams play seven qualification matches followed by 12 teams playing in a double elimination finals bracket.

The top 36 robotics teams in the state qualified for the tournament based on performance and awards received at their regional events during the competition season.

The Fairmont High School Robotics Team (known as The MegaHertz) qualified via their first place finish at the Lake Superior Regional in Duluth and fourth place finish at the 10,000 Lakes Regional in Minneapolis in March. The team also won the Autonomous Award at both events for excellence in programming their robot.

The MegaHertz amassed a 5-2 record and earned the rank of 4th during qualification matches. During alliance selection, the number 1 ranked team, Inconceivable from Rochester, chose the number 2 ranked team, KnightKrawler from New Brighton, moving The MegaHertz up to captain the number 3 alliance. To round out the third alliance, the Fairmont team chose F.R.E.D., the team from Warroad, and the Tonkabots from Mound.

In their first semi-final match, the Fairmont-led alliance lost 236 to 207 to move to the lower bracket. In their next semi-final match, The MegaHertz suffered a narrow loss 236-227 in part due to a malfunction which rendered one of their alliance’s robots disabled for a portion of the match and ended the alliance’s tournament play. The MegaHertz, along with their alliance partners finished in fourth place.

The number 2 alliance consisting of teams from Becker, New Brighton, and Pequot Lakes defeated the number 1 ranked alliance to claim the 2025 state title.

The team’s head coach is Sam Viesselman, with assistance from more than 10 volunteers.