The Robotics team placed eighth out of 58 teams at the Chesapeake Regional Competition at George Mason University Friday and Saturday, ending the season on a high note.
“Team 1389—The Body Electric” had a great season this year, breaking previous team records.
“This season the team really stepped up and we had our best record in our 11-year history,” senior John Ballock said.
The team attributes their growth to some key changes, including better organization.
“The team this season has made much more progress week-by-week than it has in the past,” sophomore Annie Waye said. “We had a better organizational system this year both in scheduling time to work at school and dividing the many responsibilities in a fair and efficient way.”
Teams receive a new challenge every year; this year’s teams attempted an environmentally-based project. The challenge, called “Recycle Rush,” required teams to create robots that could stack boxes and recycling bins into high towers, sophomore Joey Wood said. The team that created the highest stack earned the most points.
Aside from stacking their way to success at Friday and Saturday’s tournament, the team placed well at a competition last week, The FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition D.C. Regional.
The team came in 12th out of 48 teams, earning a place in the semifinal competition, in which they placed 4th.
The judges at the D.C. Regional also awarded the team the D.C. Regional’s GM Industrial Design Award.
They also finished the tournament with a winning record, a first for the team.
The Chesapeake Regional was also momentous for the team, although they fell slightly short of achieving the same success.
“We hoped that this week we would get to the same place as we had the week before: at least the quarterfinals,” Waye said. “This weekend, we didn’t make it to quarterfinals but we did make it close.”
They missed moving onto the next round by just one point.
Despite the team’s eighth-place finish and a fifth-place finish in the elimination round, judges awarded them the Quality Award for “a robust design” and good execution and construction, Waye said.
Although the team is disappointed not to take home a tournament victory, they are proud of what they have accomplished, and look forward to having another successful season next year.
“This was an amazing end to a great season that saw the team make some big strides towards becoming an elite team,” the team announced on their website.
