Robotics National Competition: An Inside View
After winning the Peachtree Regional on March 18 (by any means an astounding feat), iHOT Robotics Team 1414 was sent to the national FIRST Robotics Competition at the Georgia Dome on April 28 and 29. FIRST, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, is an organization that brings together students from all over the world, much like our own school. It gives each team six weeks to plan, design, and construct a robot to complete the challenges FIRST creates. All of this work culminates in the nationals in Atlanta, where hundreds of teams compete to prove that their robot is the best.
It started with the Opening Ceremonies, where such public figures as the U. S. Secretary of Commerce showed up to describe just how important and vital to our country’s future FIRST is, as are all of the participants involved. After a few awards, such as the AutoDesk Visualization Award for animations (which we won at the Peachtree Regional), the games began.
It was a rough start. Of the four divisions, our robot was in the most challenging one, Archimedes. As our own robot needed changes made to it, we began to realize just how tough the competition was. However, the more games we lost, the more I began to feel proud that our robot was good enough to compete with the best from all over the world.
Our robot wasn’t losing all the time, however. By the end of Friday, April 28, we were still in the running. The next day we had one match before the top eight teams picked who they would have an alliance with for the finals. After we lost that match, we worked hard to get an alliance with some of the teams, and strategized furiously with the top eight teams to get them to pick us. At the end, however, our efforts were in vain, and none of the teams picked us. I didn’t feel bad, though. I still felt proud that we had gotten that far, that I had gotten to be a part of something so much bigger than myself, so I decided to just look forward to pizza at the after party.