On Thursday, March 2nd, the Jesuit FRC Robotics team recently competed in a highly anticipated tournament against many other top-rated teams including previous champions. Despite their best efforts, the team was unable to secure a victory. However, this setback did not discourage the team members, who displayed impressive perseverance and dedication throughout the competition. The tournament was a challenging experience for the team, who had been preparing for months in advance. They had spent countless hours designing and building their robot, testing and refining its capabilities to ensure it would perform at its best during the competition.

Problems

The robot had many connectivity issues due to a faulty radio and was unable to move during most of the matches. In addition to the connectivity issues, the robot’s intake also broke in the final match. But due to the team’s immense desire to make it to states, they were able to fix the issue after multiple attempts, securing them 21 district points, making them still alive in their quest to make it to the state championship. There are 174 teams in the district and the top 80 are eligible to go to the state tournament. 

Sai Gujjarlapudi ’23, the team’s lead designers, says “the robot died from about 10 billion different issues for 6 matches. Then we won 5/6 remaining matches once we were working. That Friday was ridiculously stressful but I’m just relieved we persevered past the problems and climbed back up. It was a great tournament and fairly satisfying ending, although the robot didn’t return from the tournament in one piece.”

One more chance!

The team still has another chance to qualify for states at the end of the month in the Amarillo tournament. Most of the team has been working extremely hard throughout spring break, working to get the robot running and in better shape than last time so they can steal a victory!

Stay tuned to the Roundup for more coverage on the Robotics season ahead!