In the FIRST® Robotics Competition community, the week of February 26th holds a lot of significance: the start of Competition Season. For my team, Team 341 Miss Daisy, this also means our first chance to see how our robot truly performs.
From March 1st-3rd, our first district competition at Hatboro-Horsham High School had taken place. At Hatboro, we had quite an exciting performance, going 9-3 in the qualification round. While we had some technical issues in our first few matches, we quickly recovered and started hitting our stride, ending up seeded 3rd overall out of the 33 teams competing. For the elimination/playoff round, we joined forces with Team 1168, Malvern Robotics, and Team 6226, Blue Devils during alliance selection. Together, we performed admirably, making it to the finals where we were unfortunately defeated 0-2. Despite this eventual team, we still performed extremely well. Historically our team has had a weak showing in our first week, although we normally improve greatly as the season progresses. This year, however, we performed much better than our normal expectations.
This year, we also had some new visitors. Elementary school kids and their parents visited us at Hatboro thanks to our new STEM Sprouts initiative in which we host monthly workshops at our school to expose younger children to STEM concepts. At Hatboro, we showed the kids what a robotics competition was all about: we watched matches, showed them our robot, and gave them a glimpse of the excitement that comes with these competitions.
In addition, this year I was nominated by my team for the Dean’s List award. The only award presented to an individual student, the Dean’s List award recognizes leadership and a dedication to FIRST®. After my interview on Sunday, I was ecstatic to find I was chosen by the judges to receive the award. Now a Dean’s List Regional Semi-Finalists, I will compete in early April, at the FIRST Mid-Atlantic Championship, for the title of Dean’s List Finalist and a chance to compete at the World Championship in Houston.
What a great start for the competition season! I couldn't be any more proud for my team!