This past weekend, we competed in the first competition of the 2020 season at Hatboro Horsham! We had a fantastic time checking other teams' robots, making new friends, and cheering on our team!
On Friday, we met right after school in our lab to load in our robot at Hatboro Horsham. Tensions were high as we had only finished building our robot the day before. Once we arrived at Hatboro, we rapidly began working on setting up our pit and making sure our robot was functional for competition the next day. Sure enough, it wasn't. We had many last minute test with programming, our manipulator, and our lift. It would have been ideal to refine these things in the lab, but we ran out time (as often happens during build season). While some members worked on the robot, other members went to check out other teams' bots and scouted. They made many friends across teams on the way.
On Saturday qualifying matches began. Qualifying matches are the matches that count towards our team rank. That rank will then determine whether or not we make to the final rounds. Our manipulator did not work as well as we wanted it to; we missed many of the shots we took, but we had a very reliable climb. Although we lost the majority of our matches, we were very proud with the consistent performance of our climb! We ended the day in 29th place out of 36. Despite our many losses, we were still optimistic and ready to tackle the next day of competition.
On Sunday, our last day of competition, we performed pretty well! We ended qualifiers 22nd of 36 and were then chosen to be in the fourth alliance, allowing us to be in the quarter finals! We were fortunate enough to be asked by Vulcan Robotics from SpringSide Chestnut Hill and the Blue Devils from Burlington, NJ.
Our quarter finals are out of two matches. We one our first match, but lost our second resulting in a tie breaker. Our lost was very frustrating for us because it wasn't that we couldn't have won, we just had wonky communication with our robot prohibiting our ability to climb. During our tie breaker, we unfortunately lost due to our lift malfunctioning again. This was devastating as our lift was the most reliable part of our robot all competition long, and malfunctioned at the most inconvenient time.
All in all, our first competition was better than we expected it to be when we first loaded in on Friday! We had visits from some teachers, administrators, and school board members which motivated us throughout the competition. Shout to Ms. Julie Haywood, Dr. Reily, Mr. Desipio, and Ms. Putterman. Our team bond grew, especially with newer members. We are currently preparing for our next competition at SpringSide Chestnut Hill Academy on March 3/13-15/2020. We hope you com join us!
