For the robotics team (BB-R8ers), qualifying for the FIRST Robotics Championship wasn’t just a minor achievement. Rather, it was the culmination of months of working together as a team while leveraging creative thinking and clever strategy. The FIRST Robotics Championship (FRC) brings together the most competitive teams from across the country to compete, and after winning the Impact Award at a recent competition, the BB-R8ers qualified.
“We ended up winning what’s considered the most prestigious prize in the robotics championship, which is the Impact Award, and that alone gave us 40-something points to qualify for worlds,” robotics team advisor Martin Saavedra said.
Liam Chen, BB-R8ers Team Member, shared this same sentiment and explained how rewarding it was to see their robot function successfully and earn a spot in the championship.
“It was super rewarding seeing it [our robot]actually work and qualifying for the championship,” robotics team member Junior, Liam Chen, said.
Saaverdra explained how the team spent a considerable amount of time working at Coral Park Senior High School, where they collaborated with another team, used their equipment, and got help with any questions they had.
“So we’ve been working very hard to make sure that our robot is perfect for the World [Championship] because the robots there are very competitiv
(Valentina Currarino Herrera)
e… and we’ve been working long nights, kind of perfecting the design, testing it out on their [Ram Tech] practice field,” said robotics team member junior Ian Virelli.
The BB-R8ers are not guaranteed a win, regardless of their level of preparation for the competition. This is because the robots competing have room for error, and this lends randomness to the competition. The robotics team is no stranger to this fact, and this almost cost them their qualification for the championship in previous years.
“There’s a lot of opportunity for that [random results] to happen. For example, when we went to our regional [competition] in Iowa, we won. But in one of the matches, one of the robots accidentally broke the other team’s. So we got zero points for that round, and we almost lost because of that, though we had beaten the team a bunch of times,” Virelli said.
This variability contributes excitement to the overall competition, according to the team. Even though the BB-R8ers have worked intensively on creating the best possible robot for the competition, the results are yet to be seen. However, the Raiders are still entering the World Championship with their heads held high and with strong expectations on its outcome.
“I think that if we get a good alliance, we have a good chance of getting far,” Virelli said.
