Meet, greet & compete

Due to the nature of the competition floor and the response of the wheels, all teams knew their robots would be smacking into each other. The teams were advised to protect their robots with bumpers. Friday night’s game was an example of how important those bumpers will be during the FIRST competition.

The bots rolled around the temporary arena as team members attempted to throw orbit balls into the trailer/baskets. The CVHS team spiced up the playing field a little by adding two of their previous years’ robots to the floor.

All cheered for their favorite team while orbiting balls flew and engineers hurried onto the field to make quick repairs to ailing robots.

”This is pretty cool,” said Dallas Ross.

“We’re now friends [with these teams],” echoed Pierre Tasci.

“But we’re still competitive,” clarified Ross.

“It was great. We got to compare problems,” said Clark team member Emily Burke.

She added that it was a great time to get some extra practice in for team members who wanted to operate the robot.

The night encompassed the true competitive nature of FIRST, which the organization calls, “Gracious Professionalism.” The phrase combines fierce competition with respect for competitors.

Friday night was a great example of that theory.

“I think it went great,” Neat said.

“It was just a ton of fun,” Burke added.

The robots are now packed up and are waiting the regional competition, Feb. 12-14 at the Long Beach Arena.