M-SET Fish swim their way into semi-finals

During the first match of the FRC semifinals, M-SET’s robot was tipped onto its side after a fast turn and collision with another competing robot. Unsure of which parts would still be functioning while competing for the first time without their seniors, the M-SET team was filled with a sense of dread and shock.

On the weekend of Oct. 3, the Mechanical Science and Engineering Team (M-SET) partook in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) offseason event called CalGames.

The team replayed the last year’s challenge, Ariel Assist. The object of the game is to pass around a 2-foot diameter yoga ball between three robots with the end goal of scoring the boal in a 10-foot high goal.

The team took its 2014 robot, Gus, to compete at the event. Although it was the same robot, there were some new features. The club improved the grip of the claw, made the ball center better and engineered the robot to drive faster, said junior Naveed Riziat, the club’s president.

The day of competition hummed with both excitement and nervousness as this was the first time the team was competing without some key graduates from 2014. Alumni Ivan France, Mihir Iyer and Alex Renda provided a strong foundation last year with mechanical, electrical and coding knowledge for the team.

“We had to make a few changes to our drive team because some seniors were gone,” Riaziat said “but overall, I think that our new members were extremely professional and calm.”

After a set of 10 round-robin matches, the team was seeded 17th out of 40 teams and was picked to be part of the fifth-place alliance. Picking is a process in which the top eight teams create eight alliances of three robots each.

“Sadly, during the competition, some of our robot parts did break, so we did seed very low,” Riaziat said. “So when we got picked, it was a huge relief, and when we went to go play with our alliances, it was really fun and we generally worked very well together.”

The Fish went up against and upset the third-seeded alliance, made up of TKO from Archbishop Mitty, M-A Bears from Menlo Atherton High School, and The Apes of Wrath from Pioneer and Los Gatos High school, in their quarter-final performance. But the team was eventually caught off guard and lost in the semi-finals to the Space Cookies, a Girl Scout affiliate, Red Tie Robotics from  Monte Vista High School and MVRT from Monta Vista High School.

Even though  team members are disappointed that they didn’t reach finals, they won two other awards from the competition: the video award and the mentor of the year award. The latter of the two awards was awarded to Dianne France, parent mentor/volunteer who runs M-SET, and was by far the team’s favorite award.

“Everyone in the stands were ecstatic since we had been trying to get this award since last year, and a lot of hours had been put into writing the essay,” Riaziat said. “Immediately, when we realized who they were going to be calling up, it was a feeling of pride because we were able to honor [France] with this award.”