By Kiara Amaya
The Robodox team recently competed at the Robotics World Championship in Texas, finishing 52nd out of the 76 teams selected from an original pool of over 3,000 teams.
Since the beginning of the year, the Robodox team has been putting in hard work to prepare for the championship. Their first competition which set off their journey was the Ventura County Regional at Hueneme Port. The second was the LA County Regional at DA Vinci Schools where the team won the event and their spot in the championship.
For about six months the dedicated team members stayed after school and came on weekends to work on their robot. After much hard work the team was ready for the championship where they competed with other teams from all around the world.
“We were placed in the Galileo division and ended 52nd out of 76 teams. It was an incredible experience seeing all the top teams from around the world and an honor to share the field with them,” junior and co-captain Danielle Trinh said.
The theme for the competition this year was transportation with the game known as Rapid React. Each match has two alliances of three robots each. At the beginning of each match, there was a period where the robot followed a preprogrammed routine. Then the drivers took control of their robots. Robots were to pick up “cargo” balls from anywhere on the field and score them in the center hub. Toward the end of each match, robots made their way to their alliance’s hangar zone, where there were four different levels of bars to climb, like monkey bars. The alliance that accumulated the most points at the end was the winner.
The team had overall low expectations for the outcome of the championship due to lack of experience since the team lost two graduating classes due to Covid who would have served as guides. Students were very surprised, therefore, that they had qualified since the team had only attended four times prior in the team’s history.
There was also an Innovation Faire, which featured booths from colleges and companies, allowing for networking. Additionally, conferences were held about topics ranging from programming to leadership and management.
“The World Championship was truly an unforgettable experience that I’m thankful to have shared with my team. It was inspiring seeing thousands of incredible students and mentors dedicated to engineering, all in the same place sharing the same passion for robots and excitement about learning,” Trinh said.
The championship gave the students valuable experience and memories to carry on with them. The Robodox team serves as an illustration of success after hard work and dedication.
The Plaid Press 