VEX Robotics Competition: Rebooting the Season
October 10, 2022
The atmosphere thickens with excitement, and the exhilarating buzz of anticipation and adrenaline fills the air. On September 24th, the day the Robotics Team dedicated months to prepare for had finally arrived. By spending countless hours constantly tinkering with their robots, searching for further improvements and modifications, PPCHS’s Robotics Team has always strived for perfection, setting high expectations for themselves and everyone else. Through perseverance, dedication, and teamwork, the Iron Jags and the Department of Microwave Repair have accumulated a rich history of victories for themselves, and their future looks as bright as ever.
On Saturday, September 24th, the Robotics Team competed at the VEX Robotics Competition at the Community School of Naples, their very first competition of the season. In this year’s Spin Up challenge, teams were faced with the task of programming their robots to shoot disks into high goals, spin rollers, and expand onto tiles. The competing teams, the Iron Jags, the Department of Microwave Repair, and Category 5, devoted themselves to spending hours constructing their robots after school, especially as the competition came to a near. “We put at least 40-50 hours into that robot. I lost a lot of sleep,” says junior team leader Matthew Estevez. “Crazy. It’s really busy, as everyone’s trying to do last minute things, practice, and get ready. But, when you have good team members that collaborate well, they do magnificent,” elaborates club sponsor Ms. Estevez.
Contrary to popular belief, successfully completing these robots is no easy task. Building the robots is a meticulous process, and one small mistake can risk it all. “Consistency is crucial. What’s important during matches is that the driver knows how to control it; if your robot isn’t consistent, it’s unpredictable. You don’t know if it’s going to be accurate because there’s a different feel in the competition– it’s a different feel from the lab. There’s a lot of things that can go wrong,” explains Matthew.
Yet, through their continuous perseverance, hard work, and fantastic ability to communicate and work together, the Robotics Team has proved time and time again that these challenges are nothing they can’t handle. The team places particular emphasis on the ability to communicate and cooperate; According to junior Eduardo Steinman, “Hard work is one of the most important qualities you can have. If we’re going to make a robot that works, it doesn’t build itself. We need a lot of time and effort to make the robot come out as nicely as it does, and obviously respect and cooperation between team members is important too. Even if you’re the most dedicated team in the world, if you don’t work together well, it’ll be useless.” Yet, although working well together is an essential quality to have, the team knows that being reliable and dependable is fundamental to teamwork. “You need to play the role you’re assigned to and be a resourceful person when needed. Our team in general does well in every category, and that’s because each of us are able to do our own roles independently,” adds junior Nathan Pothuganti.
And finally, the day that had been anticipated for what felt like ages had finally arrived. After registration at 8:30, inspection, and setting up at their designated tables, the teams were ready to showcase the product of their hard work. Although confronted with obstacles and challenges, the teams were often able to overcome them through teamwork. “Some of our opponents were pretty good, so it was really nerve-wracking to compete against them, especially when they were preventing us from scoring,” says senior Co-President Sushant Kannan. “We were able to overcome it thanks to our alliance with another team, and we had good coordination as well.”
Other challenges were treated as learning experiences and opportunities for improvement for next time. “We didn’t have a lot of time to consistently test out the expansion, so at the competition, of our two launchers, only one of them ended up firing string consistently. We want to fix this as well before our next competition, which is October 15,” adds junior Nikhil Sangamkar.
Overall, the Robotics Team had an amazing experience at the VEX competition, and won awards once again. The Iron Jags were tournament finalists, placing second, and the Department of Microwave Repair won the Design Award, placing third overall. And still, this is far from the end for the team. “Our current goals are to qualify for the States Competition, achieve a high skills score and ranking (like top 3 in the state), and winning at competitions in general. We are actually #16 in the world right now in skills, which is kind of crazy, but not many competitions have opened up yet since it is still early season. Eventually, we hope to possibly become world finalists,” explains Nikhil. The season has begun with a phenomenal start, and PPCHS is excited for the team’s bright future.
