It’s no secret that Jesuit is known for its exceptional sports teams. However, non-mainstream sports such as robotics and bowling aren’t always the first that come to mind when someone mentions Jesuit sports, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t impressive.
This past week, the Jesuit robotics team, a.k.a. the Jesuit Allsparks and Team 2848, competed at the National FRC (First Robotics Competition) championship in the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, MO. The tournament featured hundreds of teams from not only around the US, but also around the world. While there, the team managed to win the 2014 FRC world championship, securing their place as the best in the world.
In order to prepare for this event, the team  did not make any new additions, but instead, the members of the team finely tuned the robot to make sure that it performed optimally. They tuned in the robot by adjusting the robot’s bungee cord and by adjusting the hard stop mechanism, two essential components of the robot that allowed for both high scoring potential and high mobility.
When they arrived on Wednesday, April 23, the team trained all day, practicing shots and scrimmaging other teams. Then, they competed in matches Thursday through Saturday, April 24-27. Split into 4 different divisions, the tournament was initially separated by region.  The four different divisions were all named after different influential scientists. They divisions were called Archimedes, Curie, Galileo, and Newton. After each division played out, the four winning teams from each division met on field Einstein and played a two-step bracket to decide the winner.
The team played in random alliances, teams consisting of three robots from various schools, in order to determine seeding. After these preliminary matches, the 1st seed team, team 254 from Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, CA, a fellow Jesuit school, chose our Jesuit team as its third alliance member. Although only three robots competed in each game, each alliance had four robots on it in case one needed to be replaced. Jesuit’s alliance consisted of team 254 from Bellarmine, team 469 from International Academy High School in Bloomfield Hills, MI, team 2848 from Jesuit Dallas, and team 74 from Holland, MI.
Each match would consist of a three game set, and throughout the entire tournament, the alliance won every match and only lost two games, one in the finals and another when the Allsparks’ robot sat a game out and the backup had to go in. Although this match was in the semi-finals of the Curie division, this loss was only a very minor inconvenience as the Jesuit team was able to come back for the last game of the set and help the alliance win the match.
After winning the Curie division with only a single loss, the alliance moved to the Einstein field, where the champions of each division met and competed. After a clean sweep in the semi-finals, the Jesuit alliance was faced with the last remaining opponents. After their first two games, it was tied at 1-1. During the last game, the opposing alliance was up by 20 points with only 12 seconds left, but team 254 was able to score in the final moments, putting Jesuit’s alliance just barely ahead and winning the world championship.
Jerray Dewa ’14, vice president of the team, said that the final match was both “intense… and very satisfying.” Eric Dunkerly ’14, the human player and head programmer of the team, mentioned that all he could think when the team won was “we actually did it.” Dunkerly particularly stressed how difficult the tournament was. Even behind the scenes, there was constant work being done. Dunkerly himself had to code two entirely new autonomous modes on the fly, one of which he did in under 20 minutes and had to execute perfectly in one try because they were unable to test the code.
On the field, the robot mostly played as a defensive robot and block the other team as it tried to score, which it was able to do very well due to its weight and its plate that it could use to stop itself.
Mr. Couvillon, the head coach of the team, commented that “we knew we had won once we shot the truss shot in the last second of the match… [because] that gave us cushion for a 20 point penalty.” Additionally, he seemsed thrilled with the results, commenting that “the odds on winning the championship are very low, and there’s only been one other six year team that has done it, and they’re the simbots, and we actually went up against them and won.”
In the end, this was a great victory for team 2848 and for Jesuit. With so many capable students on the team, there’s no limit as to what they can accomplish next year! That being said, don’t forget to congratulate them on their victory!
