By Cyanne Ito
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With over 400 different teams qualifying for the VEX Robotics World Championship last year, the criteria to qualify for the championship this year had been raised. Despite this, the Trojanbots, VEX Robotics teams 1973 A and B from MHS, placed first and second respectively at the VEX Robotics Tournament hosted at MHS on Oct. 22.
“(Winning) felt good cause we’ve been working really hard on our robot. It’s good to see all this hard work paid off,” said team 1973 A’s Sophomore Clayton Dailey. “Their commitment to robotics is just a reflection of their performance; they love it, they’re into it, and their performance shows what Mililani High School can do,” said VEX Robotics Adviser Timothy Pregana.
Along with Dailey, team 1973 A consisted of Sophomore Glenn Galvizo Jr. and Junior Nalani Ogata. Team 1973 B was composed of Juniors Ryan Taketa, Brandon Matsumura, Justin Knaus and Joelle Arakaki, though Arakaki was unable to attend the tournament. The members of team 1973 C, Juniors Madison Richardson and Jake Shirokane and Sophomore Tayler Fernandez-Dizon placed eighth in the competition as well, with a record of 4-2.
The competition consisted of 16 schools entering one to three teams each, with a total of 32 different teams competing. There were a total of six rounds of match play. “A match play consists of 20 seconds of autonomous programming … where students program a robot to do a specific x, y and z function over time,” Pregana explained. After the 20 seconds of programmed function, there were two minutes of operative control. Four robots participated in each match, two on a red alliance and two on a blue alliance competing for the most points to win the match.
To increase chances of winning, members of MHS’ VEX Robotics put in many hours after school and on weekends. “It requires a lot of time, we just went to one of the competitions last week, and kids were putting in 12-hour days just to prep their robots for competition,” said Pregana.
The team also prepared by studying strategies and making sure their robots were ready for the competition. “We planned to be aggressive (by) picking up the pieces and (building) a fast robot, but yet still (having) power in the drive,” said Taketa. “(We tried to get) new knowledge of the competition, new insight, so (we could study) other people’s strategies and hopefully incorporate them,” added Galvito.
The competition was a part of a series of competitions called League Play and by placing first and second in this competition, teams 1973 A and B have earned spots in the state championships which will be held at the Hawaii Convention Center on Dec. 3 to 5.
