By Rachel Dinh
With the odds stacked against them as high as the crates from last year’s competition, the TPA Robotics team decided, “To heck with it, we’re going to have the most fun we can.”
They came to this conclusion after discovering that they were pitted against the Holy Cows for the second time in that weekend’s tournament. The Holy Cows come from a technology-orientated high school literally named High Tech High and receive lots of funding for their robotics team. Their robot was very advanced, complete with machine-made components. The first time the All Knights went against them, things did not go well. Olek Piechaczek explains, “We gave it our all in that match against the Holy Cows, but in the end we couldn’t compete against their highly specialized robot. In that first match, we had 106 points while they had 204 points.”
At lunch break, all the drive teams in the alliance with the All Knights gathered and talked about their strengths and weaknesses. “We knew we couldn’t beat them, so we decided to go all out. We became the defender ‘bot for our alliance and started ramming into the Holy Cows. Each round only lasts 2 minutes and 15 seconds, and halfway through, the Holy Cows were backed into a corner because we made it impossible for them to get out. The crowd was in an uproar by the time the round finished. In the end, the Holy Cows alliance had more points than us because of the other robots in their alliance. But we were the real victors.”
This victory was accompanied by the Creative Award, which was given to TPA for their unique defensive strategy and their distinctive curved robot design to make it easier to grab the balls. In addition, they ranked 19th place out of 43 teams on Friday, which qualified them to advance to Saturday of the competition. On Saturday, after 4 more matches, they moved up to 15th place. Not too shabby for a small school like TPA. You might even say that the All Knights made history. Aimee Cheng says, “Every round after ours, teams used our strategy. I think the biggest victory we got was learning to think out of the box. We didn’t make it, but no one on the team was especially upset because they knew we tried our best.”
TPA’s teamwork was spectacular. Sam DiCaro helped Quinn Collins the driver navigate the robot. Ameil Jones stood on the other side of the field as a “spy,” helping the robot make perfect shots. William Bowden, along with a couple others, was a scout, meaning that he recorded (via Jacob Steineke’s iPhone app) what the other teams’ robots did. Bella DiCaro, Olek, and Aimee Cheng managed the match schedule and discussed strategy with other teams.
The members of the robotics team were brimming with excitement from the events of the tournament on Monday morning. Bella said enthusiastically, “I actually wish I wasn’t at school and that the tournament lasted forever; it was one of the highlights of my whole year!”
Blake Carter, also new to the team this year, relates on his experience: “I never expected robotics tournaments to be this fun. It made all the long meeting hours every week worth it. I’m definitely looking forward to next year!”