Last weekend, three members of the school’s VEX robotics team 95071X guided their robot to a 27th among 70 teams from across the nation at the North Dakota VEX Robotics Competition Signature Event in Grand Forks, sponsored by the University of North Dakota.
Senior Alec Guan, sophomore Daniel Yeh and freshman Dhruv Rao got their fill of winter during the trip as they saw unusual sights such as snow falling onto farms in subfreezing temperatures.
The team built a robot for this year’s game, “Push Back,” which involves scoring octadecahedron-shaped blocks into long horizontal tubes. Teams are tasked with designing 18”x18” robots, which can then expand to 22”x22” during matchplay. During each game, robots compete to score as many blocks as possible, and park in a dedicated zone at the end of the match.
95071X, or Saratoga High Extremity, also includes seniors Richard Lee, Adit Sharma and Bryan Zhao; junior Krishna Muddu and two other freshmen, Jake He and Enzo Zhao.
According to Rao, who holds the role of driver, making it to semifinals was a dream come true after their poor qualification match placements.
“After the first day, we were scared about whether we were even going to get chosen,” he said. “At that time, we had two wins and two loses and ranked around 40th place.”
Despite the bad start, the team persevered and by the middle of the second day, they had climbed the ranks to near 27th place.
“During the first few matches, we lost a lot because the robot was extremely inconsistent,” Rao said. “Our intake often jammed when we tried to score, so we couldn’t predict any of the results.”
After their qualification matches, they prepared for their elimination games. The elimination bracket is based on ranking, which put a huge stress on the team as they didn’t know if they would be chosen.
When alliance selection started, the team was chosen into the fourth seed, a better result than expected. The team that chose them noted that Extremity was extremely strong but seemed to have unlucky matches.
“I believed in our matchplay — we just didn’t know if other people would see that we played well,” Rao said. “I think we were lucky that this team watched our matches so that they would choose us.”
In the elimination matches, the team won its first two games but eventually lost in the semifinals. Compared to the rest of the season, the result seemed average as they had already won finals in other tournaments.
Looking back on the tournament, Rao noted all the positives to take away.
Rao said: “I learned a lot about driving and how to play the game. We got extremely unlucky with our first few matches but it helped us understand more what to do when we have a weaker teammate. I think at the next event we go to, we have a good chance of winning and qualifying.”
