The 38 students on the school’s FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) team, MSET Fish, will be heading to Houston in April for the World Division Tournament.

After the school’s 14-member FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) team MSET Cuttlefish made Worlds on March 13, MSET Fish also qualified on March 28. They were one of the three teams that found success from the 42 participating teams at the San Francisco Regional Tournament at Saint Ignatius High School.

According to senior team lead Arya Vasani, MSET Fish had a lot of issues with their shooter early in the tournament but managed to adapt. 

“We ended up being the only team during qualifiers to win against the Rank 1 team,” Vasani said. “However, because of how we played earlier, we seeded pretty low and only made it to semi-finals.”

Even though MSET Fish didn’t qualify through the robot game, for the first time, they qualified by winning the  Chairman’s Award, the most prestigious award at the competition given to the team that best represents a role model for other FRC teams to emulate through comprehensive outreach programs — a mission the tournament organizers greatly value.

Vasani attributed the team’s success to the extensive community outreach the team has done over the last few years, such as mentoring younger children in lower-level robotics competitions and their Go Baby Go initiative to help children with Cerebral Palsy.

Now, the team is working to prepare their robot for Worlds, which had been canceled for the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many current seniors, who had gone to Worlds during their freshman year, are excited to return, while the underclassmen are also looking forward to meeting “national powerhouses to hopefully learn a thing or two,” Vasani said

 “It feels great to finally be recognized for all the hard work we’ve been putting in for this season and even the last couple of years,” he said. “The fact that we qualified means we have to work even harder to be ready for higher-level competition.”