Robotics competes in FIRST Tech Challenge qualifier

Robotics competed in their first event of the season Jan. 16 in the gyms. The team along with advisor Jacob Day and robot “Nick Mavis” set up with 30 other robotics teams

National Honor Society also volunteered with helping teams from every school set up and run through the competition smoothly.

Robotics challenges are hosted by FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) which is a high school level competitive robotics program.

“This particular challenge is called the FIRST RES-Q, Wylie East Qualifier,” Robotics club president Lauren PeCoy said. “The hosting for the competition was great,” Day said. “Mr.Williams and Dr. Vinson were super positive and motivational.”

The robot’s number is 8204, and it’s name is Nick Mavis, who happens to be a senior.

“Last year, Emily and Cris were trying to decide a name for the robot so they could put it in the computer,” senior Nick Mavis said. “While they weren’t looking, I typed in Nick Mavis and hit okay.”

The teams spend competition days according to the FTC schedule.

“First thing is registration, and then inspection to make sure robots meet the size and safety requirements,” Pecoy said.

After registration FTC judges review the Robotics notebook which is a log of all club and robot information.

“After judging we have a lull period to just prepare,” PeCoy said. “Then it’s time for competition where everyone wants to cry.”

The team started the first match of competition with some technical difficulties.

“We caught some tough breaks that were pretty lame,” Day said. “If we would have had a good robot the run-ins wouldn’t have been so crippling.”

This is the first year the robot’s controllers are compatible with phones.

“We had some problems with the FTC app,” club member Micah LaPointe said. “We lost our second match because we were stuck on debris, which are the blocks that are placed in the pit with the robot,” former club president Emily Esch said.

Competitions work by teams alliancing with each other and getting their robots up hills called mountains.

“The robots run off of autonomous, which is a program where robots can run by themselves, and then teleop, where someone drives the robot with a controller,” Esch said. “We have to get the robots up the mountains and pick up debris.”

Esch worked as a coach at the competition.

“As a ‘coach’ I mostly stayed in the field to help the robot’s driver and Micah stay level headed,” Esch said. “We won our first match despite the app going into error mode.”

The team was faced with difficulties during the beginning of the competition but made a comeback in later matches.

“I felt proud watching Devin drive the robot,” club member Hunter Jones said. “We haven’t been able to get onto the mountain yet and he did it.”

Sophomores Devin Crabtrey and Tyler Lambert shared drive times.

“Driving the robot is fun,” Crabtrey said. “I feel like I’ve improved since last year.”

The Robotics team did not make it to finals but they won two out of five preliminary matches.

“In order to get to finals we had to place in the top four in the five prelim matches,” Esch said. “Then it would finish out tournament style.”

The Wylie East Qualifier ended with Robotics placing 18th out of the 30 teams.

“Now that competition is over we are going to organize different aspects of the club and try to determine how best to lead the club,” PeCoy said.