Robotics team faces competitors this spring
Posted March 16
After six weeks of designing and building, the Saint Francis robotics team members finally get a chance to test the capabilities of their robot as they take part in regional competitions this spring.
The FIRST robotics competition has a new challenge for students to meet each season, and this year, teams built robots that could pick up balls and place them in their opponents’ trailers.
At the first regional contest for Saint Francis, held at San Jose State University March 12 and 13, the experience was a good tune-up for the team to see their robot in a competition setting and determine how to further improve the mechanics of their creation.
“When we go to the next regional at UC Davis, we are going to be really prepared,” said sophomore Abhishek Sriraman.
These competitions are part sporting events, part shows of engineering mastery, where some schools have fans and mascots to cheer them on. But while teams may be fierce rivals during competition, they graciously help each other in between rounds when a robot breaks down.
“It’s a different attitude,” Abhishek said. “When we have programming difficulties, other teams say, ‘Feel free to ask us.’”
The Saint Francis team may be young—it only began competing last year, but Abhishek said team members learned from their rookie season and knew what to do to from the beginning. They are taking that optimism and confidence as they face their next challenges. They developed a new strategy for their robot while they were at the San Jose State regional and are eager to test it out at their next opportunity. The robotics team takes on more high schools at the UC Davis regional, held March 26-28.
