Three Vandegrift robotics teams competed at their first regional qualifier on Saturday, Dec. 1 at Brackenridge High School in San Antonio and all three qualified to go to the Regional Championship World Qualifier on March 23, 2013 based on their placements and awards.
Team 4545, the senior and veteran team, received the second place Inspire Award, Think Award, Connect Award, PTC Design Award and was a finalist for the Rockwell Collins Innovate Award and Motivate Award.
Team 6299, the junior team, received the third place Inspire Award and Motivate Award and was a finalist for the Performance Award, Think Award and Connect Award.
Team 6209, the sophomore and freshmen team, was a Captain finalist for the Performance Award and the Think Award.
“I feel like as a team we did a really good job,” sophomore team 6209 manager Seena Ounsinegad said. “Our team got really far.”
Some were optimistic about the first competition.
“I figured we would do really well,” adviser Martin Wiedenmeier said. “Three teams are going to state and that’s awesome.”
Each team’s robot must pass a software and a hardware inspection and be presented to a panel of judges. At the same time, a team usually begins scouting their competition while some members stay at their team’s assigned pit area to display information about their team and robot. During the competition, judges will come to each pit to ask questions and get more information about a team.
“I learned how to handle high pressure situations, especially with many judges coming to the pit at once,” 4545 marketer Piyushi Bishnoi said.
Since September, each of the five Vandegrift robotics teams has been working strenuously for the competition season.
“We put blood, sweat and tears into preparing for competition,” 4545 senior hardware engineer Marcos Lima said. “There were many tiring nights.”
From this experience, team members learned an extensive amount about robotics and the First Tech Challenge competitions.
“The regional competitions in our area have become much more competitive,” veteran team 4545 manager Trey Kind said.
This is the first competition since Vandegrift’s one team of 13 members, who finished 18th at the FTC World Championships last year, expanded to five teams of 70 members. With such a change in situation, the expectations were harder to gauge.
“I expected there to be kinks that needed to be worked out because it was the first competition of the year,” adviser Galen Goodreau said. “There were bumps in the road but all of the teams met them.”
The remaining two Viperbots teams, 4546 and 6210, continue in their efforts to prepare for their first regional qualifier on Jan. 26 at Roosevelt High School in the hopes of qualifying to the Regional Championship World Qualifier with teams 4545, 6299 and 6209.
