It’s April, and to the robotics team, that means it’s time for champs. On Wednesday, April 18, the team scrambled out of the bus and into the George R. Brown Convention Center for a week of excitement, competitiveness, and stress at the 2018 FIRST Houston Championship.
What is the FIRST Championship?
The enormous convention center was completely occupied by the FIRST Championship. Two of the tournaments, FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) and FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC), were held on the main floor, FTC occupying section A and FRC occupying sections B through E. In the FRC tournament area (where our team competed), there were six competition fields lined up in a row. Each of the competition fields were designated for a different division: the first for the Carver division, then the Newton division, then the Galileo division, then the Roebling division, then the Hopper division, and lastly, the Turing division. In the far end of the convention center were the 405 pits for FRC, as well as two practice fields.
The second floor was occupied by sitting areas for people to charge their phones, rest in between matches, or watch the games, as there were windows looking into the main room of the convention center.
The other two tournaments, FIRST LEGO League (FLL) and FLL Jr., were located on the third floor of the convention center, along with the Innovation Faire. The Innovation Faire was a room designated for companies to show off their technology and let robotics team members look at them and use them. The room also had many college booths set up for high school students to talk to them and learn more about their school and engineering program.
FRC is the competition that we compete in. It consists of large robots (up to 55 inches tall) that fight to gain control over the scale and the two switches. FTC, which we also compete in, however we only competed at the area and regional level, is a smaller competition with small cubes that the robots attempt to stack. FLL and FLL Jr. are robotics competitions for younger kids that use LEGO robots to complete their task.
Our team was in the Turing division of FRC. Our division consisted of 67 teams from all over the world. Countries such as Israel, China, Australia, Mexico, Canada, and of course the United States were represented by teams in just our division.
During the qualification matches, we ranked 35th; however, we were one of the highest scoring teams there, scoring more than 10 cubes in some matches. On Saturday morning, when alliance selection began, we were chosen by the 6th seeded alliance captain, team 1533 the Holy Cows from San Diego, CA. The next two teams we chose were team 1318, the Issaquah Robotics Society, from Issaquah, WA and team 3847, Spectrum from Strake Jesuit in Houston, TX.
Heat of the Competition
Our alliance pulled out a great win in the first quarterfinals match, beating the 3rd seeded alliance 413 – 268. However, when we attempted a double climb in the second match, both our robot and our partner’s robot fell off of the bar, leaving us with a 10 point deficit. Climbing awards 30 points per robot, so we would have won the match had we not fallen. Sadly, in the third quarterfinals match, we lost again, allowing the 3rd seeded alliance continue on to the semifinals and eventually the finals, where they would lose to the 8th seeded alliance.
Our division, the Turing division, was represented in the Einstein round robin tournament by team 1533, Triple Strange from Greensboro, NC, team 1296, Full Metal Jackets from Rockwall, TX, team 2655, The Flying Platypi, also from Greensboro, NC, and team 3593, Invictus from Tulsa, OK. Despite losing the round robin, they played hard and represented our division well.
The alliance from Hopper and Carver went on to the finals, where teams 254, The Cheesy Poofs from San Jose, CA, team 148, The Robowranglers from Greenville, TX, team 2976, Spartabots from Sammamish, Wa, and team 3075, Ha-Dream Team from Hod-Ha’Sharon in Israel from the Hopper division won the championship.
Welding Jesuit Brotherhood
In between the days of the tournament, our team ate dinner with some other teams. On the first night, we participated in a Jesuit dinner with three other teams from Jesuit schools. These teams were team 3847, team Spectrum from Strake Jesuit in Houston, TX, team 254, the Cheesy Poofs from Bellarmine College Prep in San Jose, CA, and team 5809, the Jesubots from Rockhurst High School in Kansas City, MO. The next night, we ate dinner with team 604, Quixilver from San Jose, CA, who were our alliance partners last year at the world championship.
Ryan Chiang ‘19 said, “the experience was amazing. The dinner with 604 and with the three Jesuit schools was fantastic.”
He continued, saying that “overall we performed well but we got incredibly unlucky via the schedule and other unforeseen circumstances.”
Jack Barone ‘18 said, “the tournament was a great experience. Not only did we compete with our robot but we got to hang out with a lot of our friends on other teams from around the world.” He went on, stating that “the dinner with other Jesuit schools was super fun. Although we went out in the quarters, I’m super proud of the team and it was a great season.”
“The team did great at worlds,” stated Noah Santoni ‘19.
He continued:
“We performed better at Houston than we did all year. Even though we did not make it past quarter finals, we were in a hard division and played really well.”
The Dean’s list finalist from the Dallas Regionals continued, saying that “the Dean’s list luncheon was really cool. I heard a lot of speakers, like the Dean of Admission from MIT and Will.i.am.”
Freshman Praveen Kalva ‘21 also explained the atmosphere of the tournament as “exciting,” saying how “everyone was enthusiastic to be at Houston and compete.”
At the end of the finals match on Minute Maid Field, the name of next year’s game was announced. The 2018-2019 FIRST Robotics Competition is titled Destination: Deep Space.
The All Sparks performed well at the world championships, and though they didn’t win, they are working hard to do well in the upcoming off-season tournaments. Stay tuned to The Roundup for more exciting robotics updates!
