Blue Cheese Robotics has spent much of their time recently in competition mode. They are required to spend hours working on design and construction, and their consistency in these areas has earned them a spot at Districts, but they have recently shifted their focus to less on building and more on putting their designs to work.

   “Recently we haven’t been at the workshop because we’ve been competing at competitions, both of which have gone well,” sophomore Conor Marek said.

   Despite all the time spent in competition, the team has been making the most out of their time in between competitions to make improvements to the build and programming of the robots. For context, during competitions, robots are tasked with different objectives. Each task completed gives teams a certain amount of points. It’s all timed and fast-paced.

   “In the next couple weeks we’re going to start working on our climb, […] autonomous, driving, and auto-alignment for scoring,” Marek said.

  Autonomous is where robots are programmed beforehand to do tasks by themselves; most of the time robots are driven by students. The climb is where a student controls the robot to climb a cage at the end of the match to score extra points for their team. Auto-alignment helps teams score points more easily during competitions.

   Blue Cheese has recently excelled in competitions, currently ranking first with 110 district points.

   “We just competed in week one […] we won the impact award. […] We went up to Portsmouth, Virginia,. and we competed for the engineering inspiration award,” freshman Aditi Inamdar said. “[During] week two, our robot placed […] second place alliance, and at week one we placed third place alliance.”

  With their hard work and persistence, Blue Cheese continues to thrive in competition. Their next competition, the Chesapeake District Championships, will be held from April 3 to April 6.