More than 35,000 people competed in and watched the competitions of the 2022 FIRST Championship, Houston, Texas, and “The Green Machine” returned from the 2022 Season “RAPID REACT” competition both tired from the weeklong event but also excited for new challenges! We had an incredible time problem solving, working together and showing off what it means to be 1816.
Our first task upon arriving in Houston was to participate in the FIRST Hall of Fame induction ceremony. On Wednesday, April 20th, we along with Team 1902-Exploding Bacon, Orlando, FL; Team 503-Frog Force, Novi, MI, and Team 4613-Barker Robotics , Sydney, Australia, finally raised our team banners marking our formal entry into the Hall of Fame. As a team, we are honored and excited to continue our responsibilities as a FIRST Hall of Fame Team.
This was 1816’s first World Championship event after winning the FIRST Championship Chairman’s Award in 2019. This award, the highest, most prestigious award conferred by FIRST on team’s that have made significant impacts toward changing culture to recognize and inspire STEM professionals.
As part of the Hall of Fame, several 1816 team members met with other teams and students in the Hall of Fame booth to provide advice and answer questions about the Chairman’s Award. One of our business mentors, Rachel Earl, was our representative for the Championship Chairman’s Chat, to talk about our team’s experience with the award and how other teams can shape their own FIRST impact stories..
Our practice matches went well and our iterations made before this competition paid off! On Thursday, April 21st, we played five out of our ten qualification matches. The first match we played great defense against the opposing alliance but we weren’t able to climb because of a communication conflict within our alliance. This trend continued until the last two matches of the day where we were able to show off our amazing 5 second climb! During all practice and qualification matches, we had members who would switch off to scout the Galileo field so the drive team could come up with an efficient strategy. Evan H. and Josh C., strategy and scouting members would communicate to Adele S., drive team coach, about our alliance partners along with our opponents for the upcoming match so we could quickly collaborate with our alliance while we were in the queuing line to the field. Our driver, Kaylie C., said, “working with teams from all over was so fascinating, everyone had different designs for their robots. Everybody was so nice!”
We were also busy in the pits. On Thursday and Friday, April 22nd, our presentation team, Kaylie C., Sam R., and Venna W., spoke to several sets of judges about our robot Zap, our design process, and our extensive outreach in the past couple of years. We continued qualification matches and the drive team was able to be flexible with our alliance partners on whether to play offense or defense. We consistently climbed to the traversal bar and were very proud of our progress throughout the day! On Saturday April 23rd, we accepted the gracious offer from the second seed, Team 1732, Hilltopper Robotics from Wisconsin to join their alliance which included, Team 118 Robonauts and Team 316, The LUNATECS. Our alliance did not advance to the semifinals on the Galileo field but we are grateful for the experience and our alliance partners who did an amazing job competing. Whether it was scouting, volunteering, presenting, and/or being a part of the pit crew or drive team, Team 1816 showed its Gracious Professionalism throughout the entire competition.
–By Venna W.