The FRC (FIRST robotics championship) Robotics World Championship is an international competition that brings together student teams from across the globe to showcase their engineering, programming, and teamwork skills. Each year, teams build robots to compete in a specific game challenge, testing their designs in fast-paced, collaborative matches. From April 14 to 19, Deep Run High School’s robotics team, Blue Cheese Robotics, traveled to Houston, Texas to take part in the championship, and came back with new perspectives, experiences, and ideas.

   Preparation for the championship began weeks in advance. The team knew their robot, the Stringray, was worthy of competing in the championship, but there were some flaws in their robot’s operation during previous competitions which needed to be fixed before the big event.

   They chose the name the “Stringray” because “string is a type of cheese and ray because the theme for this year was reef scape, hinting at the water theme,” junior Kavya Shah said.

   “One of the things we did for prep was a full systems check of the robot. To give us more time to work on the robot, we asked one of the adult mentors to drive the robot to the competition. If we hadn’t done that, we would have needed to ship out the robot almost before we could even fix issues from the district championships,” senior Jackson Campbell said.

   The team also practiced extensively, meeting at their practice field almost daily before the robot had to be transported to Houston. 

   “We have two work sites. PCS, our sponsor and where we build the robot, and an abandoned area in the Regency Mall, given by the county. […] We worked daily for like six to seven hours,” Shah said.

    They also carefully organized their supplies, making sure that nothing would go wrong. 

   “We had to pack all of our supplies into one big tray to be shipped on. We packed for two meetings and reorganized all the parts we’ll need for our pit area… It was really nerve wracking because I wanted to make sure we had everything we needed,” junior Grace O’Leary said.

   When it came time to actually go to the event, the championship itself was an incredible experience for team members. The event featured not just robotics competitions, but also an Innovation Fair showcasing products from companies like Qualcomm, HAAS, NASA and the Department of Defense.

   “Throughout the competition, I felt a great deal of excitement. There were so many things to explore. The FRC pit areas each individually took up more space than the entire senior courtyard. We wouldn’t be able to fit that many pit areas in the entire school,” Campbell said.

   After a busy few days of qualification matches where students competed diligently,  the focus shifted to the awards ceremony.

   During the awards ceremony, tension ran high as the team awaited results.

   “We were gunning for an award called the FIRST Impact award, which recognizes various contributions that your team has made to the community and is considered the most prestigious award in FIRST Robotics. Unfortunately, we weren’t announced as one of the impact finalists, so we knew that we wouldn’t win it. However, just because we hadn’t won one award, didn’t mean we wouldn’t win a different one,” Campbell said.

   The team placed 48th out of the 75 teams in their division, while also earning the Judge’s Award, a special recognition for teams that stood out but didn’t quite fit into other award categories.

   “It was a moment of excitement, especially when we won the Judges’ Award. It was both relieving and exciting for our team to be recognized for something we worked hard for,” junior Rowan Rees said. 

   Looking ahead, the team plans to continue to build community, work on better outreach initiatives, advocate for STEM, and build an improved robot for next year’s competition. But overall, the entire experience was more than a competing experience, but also one where friendships and learning experiences were made. 

   “There were teams from all around the world. I made so many friends, ones that I still talk to regularly and hope to keep in touch with. Hopefully we’ll collaborate together in the future to spread our FIRST impact. The experience was just so fun. I also learned so many new things regarding physics, chemistry, the application of robotics in real life and what fields I could go into related to robotics. It was a really fulfilling experience,” Shah said. 

   “This was a learning experience and a huge step forward, as we will get better and get the win,” Rees said.