Robotics Goes to World Championships

Stuyvesant Robotics Teams 310 and 694 competed at the Detroit World Championships over spring break, where Team 694 placed 36th out of 68 teams in their division and Team 310 placed 73rd out of 80 teams in their division. However, both teams learned from and enjoyed the competition by watching other teams compete and collaborating with them.

The Detroit World Championships were run by the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) organization, which is an international youth organization that aims to promote student involvement in engineering and technological fields. There are two types of teams that can compete in FIRST championships: larger FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) teams and smaller FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) teams. Stuyvesant’s FRC team, Team 694, and Stuyvesant’s FTC team, Team 310, represented the school this year in the world championships.

Teams from around the world came to compete in Detroit, and each team was put in a division. There were six divisions of FRC teams, with the winning teams in each division moving forward to the final competition at Einstein Field. Meanwhile, there were two divisions of FTC teams, with the winning teams competing at the final competition, the Da Vinci finals.

Before the competition, both the FTC and FRC teams were informed of the challenge of the competition. The FTC team received their challenge in September, while the FRC team received it in January. They then began intensively building their robots, testing them, and making improvements. “One of the main things I [wanted] to do is have [the FTC] team come into the lab. […] We had people from the industry come in and mentor the kids. So it’s been great having the FTC team work with those people or myself and get to use the machines [in the lab] more,” robotics teacher Joseph Blay said. In the competition, each team’s robot performed tasks such as hanging off rails, picking up game pieces, and climbing up steps. The FRC teams competed two-on-two while the FTC teams competed three-on-three.

Stuyvesant Team 694 placed 36th out of 68 teams in the Daly division and made it to the semifinals of their division. Stuyvesant Team 310 placed 73rd out of 80 teams in the Ochoa division, but won two of the qualification matches they competed in. “We kind of expected it since we were competing against the best of the best FTC teams, with amazing outreach, engineering, and software skills,” freshman Emily Tan said in an e-mail interview.

Unfortunately, Team 310 ran into some problems during the competition. Due to the rough nature of matches, their robot broke down after almost every match, and the team had to spend a lot of time repairing it. In addition, members had to repair the robot after issues during transport. “Two wheels and a motor completely fell out of our robot. The whole night at the hotel was spent fixing the robot and restoring it to a working state,” sophomore and Vice President Megan Gupta-She said.

However, the competition wasn’t limited to robotics. Team 310 organized a volleyball game to socialize and have fun with some of the other teams. “When we attend competitions outside of New York, it is a tradition for our team to have a volleyball match against whoever is willing. This year, the game pieces of the FRC game are basically yoga balls, so my president, Lili, and I borrowed one of these balls to use during the game. It was a spirited match and honestly so much fun,” Gupta-She said.

Team 310 considered the world championships a great learning experience, as they got to see other teams perform at the competition. “Something that separates the top-tier teams from other teams is that they all have robust and innovative ways to solve the little problems everyone has,” Gupta-She said. “[The FTC team] was going with the goal of ‘let’s learn a lot from all these teams; let’s have fun; let’s prepare ourselves for the next season,’” Blay said.

At one point, when Team 310 had a problem, one of the teams it was allied with during the match came to provide assistance. “People who stopped by our pit whom we made small talk with helped us find solutions to fix the mechanism, and in the end, we still couldn't make it work, but it was really cool to once again see gracious professionalism in the FIRST community,” Tan said.

Competing at the world championships was a great experience for Teams 694 and 310, the latter being the first Stuyvesant FTC team to ever make it to Detroit. “The cohesion of our FTC teams [was] so apparent during this competition. I am so proud of how far our team has come, even in terms of team dynamics because you could tell that every single person on our team wanted to be there and felt like he or she was part of the team,” Gupta-She said.