It came down to the final seconds of the final match at Hoya Robotics’ first competition of the year. In an exciting final round, two, three-team alliances – the Hoyas were part of one of them – traded wins in the first two matches. The third and final match was so close in score that a single penalty determined the winner, tipping the alliance that the Hoyas were part of into second place.<\/p>\n
“I don\u2019t think they\u2019ve had an event where the finals were so close score-wise. We gave them a run for their money,” said teacher and team mentor Ian McTavish. “The students are thrilled \u2013 we have shown that we can compete. In the alliance, if you look at the video, you can see our robot is consistently delivering points in finals and semifinals. We are up against some of the best teams in Ontario. That made our day. We have a good design.”<\/p>\n
Team captain Andrew Johnston agreed. “We\u2019re feeling very happy. For a while we were ranked 23rd<\/sup> and we were quite pleased. Then we ended up with an alliance that came second<\/sup> place. That was beyond amazing. We\u2019re all celebrating. This is record breaking for us, a northern team with little resources.”<\/p>\n Although it’s a competition, FIRST Robotics fosters teamwork and collaboration. Teams are encouraged to do outreach in their respective communities, and often mentor newer teams. At the competition, the top-performing teams choose a partner to take to the final rounds and that pair together choose a third team to complete their alliance. The three teams in each alliance then work together in competition against the other seven alliances to try to make it from the quarterfinals to the final round.<\/p>\n “Even though our standings weren\u2019t great, we had consistently delivered gears in autonomous mode, which is when the robot does whatever we\u2019ve programmed it to do, and because of that and the defensive play of our driver, a couple teams started scouting us,” said McTavish. The team that asked them to join an alliance requested that the Hoyas install a new climbing mechanism on their robot (climbing a rope four-feet in the air is one of the tasks the robots must be able to complete).<\/p>\n “It improved our climbing immensely,” said Johnston. “It made us climb in six seconds total – it was pretty quick. Because we came second, they were nice enough to let us keep it.”<\/p>\n The team will spend the next week tweaking their robot, ensuring the new climbing mechanism is fully integrated and secured and repairing any damage incurred during the Georgian competition before heading to their next competition.<\/p>\n\n\t\t