FIRST Robotics competed in the Orange County Regional Robotics competition from March 28-30 in Costa Mesa, where they were unable to qualify for playoffs due to technical issues with their robot, according to robotics member and sophomore Aidan Lai.
FIRST Robotics unveiled this year’s theme “Crescendo” for teams to base their robot on in January, according to FIRST Robotics coach and science teacher Ryan Johnson. Many of the game prompts for this year’s competition focused on synchronization, such as a game where a human player tries to throw a ring on a post while the robot simultaneously climbs on a chain to perform another task, according to Johnson.
“It’s a very competitive field, and a lot of the schools that are doing this are very good at it,” Johnson said. “We’re motivated by that competitive drive to win, but one of the goals is also to be able to develop and learn those skills in engineering and robotics over time through the competition.”
The competition hosted 48 teams that contested to gain points in games in the qualification rounds. Based on their performance, teams were able to advance to playoffs where they would form alliances with other teams. For Lai, communicating with other teams to look for potential alliances was a highlight of the competition.
“You’ll learn a lot from talking with each team,” Lai said. “All of them are happy to tell you mostly everything about their robot, and it’s just really cool seeing their different designs, their different ideas and whether it’s similar or different to yours because everyone approaches the game in their own different way.”
In addition to observing unique designs from other teams, the team also found ways to improve their performance for next year, according to president and senior Amy Shok. This includes finding more volunteers so they can hold more frequent meetings, which will let them work on the robot more.
In the future, the team hopes to continue improving their cooperation skills as well as advance further in the competition by implementing team-bonding activities and starting their meetings during the summer, according to Shok.
