The school’s robotics teams, 404E and 404Z, placed second place during a two day period, Jan. 12 at La Serna High School in Whittier, Calif., overall in the division championship, showing the team’s determination and hard work they put into their designs.
“I was sure we’d do better than the last couple of competitions and the drive there really calmed me down,” senior Nico Bronson said. “The closer we got there the more confident I felt about winning.”
Competing in the Robotics Education and Competition (REC) Foundation VEX Robotics League, the 404E team won the Judges award during the first day they competed. The second day, the 404Z team scored seventh in the skills ranking for California, which is where students compete in a 1:45 minute competition with their robots.
“A lot of teams focus on driver skills, where it’s the driver in control of the bot,” Bronson said. “But we focused on auton skills, where we coded everything prior and it’s the bot doing all of the work.”
The club welcomes all to join, experience or not, they are happy to welcome students to the club and teach them all they need to know about robotics. Being involved with the team allows students to express themselves and their creativity through their designs that will help them create winning robots.
“My favorite part about being in robotics is building robots and being able to design something and seeing the conclusion in the end,” junior Cater Rubin said.
Competitions allow for students to get to know other schools, as well as getting to know their teammates better and create bonds that will last a lifetime.
“Interacting with other teams is always my favorite part of competitions, aside from winning,” Bronson said. “Despite how competitive robotics is there is a huge community in it and it’s so much fun especially in such a stressful environment it’s very nice to be able to joke.”
With the successful awards they received from the competitions, 404Z was able to qualify for the state competition and
“When we found out we were qualifying for states it was a huge relief because it meant our season gets extended for another three months, so we have more time to recover before then,” Rubin said.
Although they didn’t place first in the competition, the team worked their hardest and showed off all the effort that was put into each robot, giving them a chance to make their way up to the top during the next state championships.
“[When each team won something] we all went and had a fun team dinner and honestly there were a lot of laughs and it was really awesome,” junior Charlotte Krause said.