by ivan isnit
Gryphon robotics reached the semifinals competition for the first time in two years after entering in the First Chesapeake District Northern Virginia Event competition.
Last year, the robotics team placed 30th in their matches. This year, their place moved to 18th when other teams picked them for a quarterfinal alliance.
The top ranking teams from Fresta Valley High School and Appomattox Regional Governor’s School for the Arts and Technology also picked Gryphon Robotics as a partner to participate after quarterfinals.
“None of us could believe we got picked,” design captain and sophomore Sara Johnson said.
Team members said in previous years, the competitions went badly because of the lack of members and funding for the robot.
“We didn’t have that many team members or involvement with mentors so we struggled a lot because we had to learn everything on our own,” finance captain and senior Sandi Khong said.
With new members joining this year to specialize groups, Johnson said that the team’s standing has elevated.
Johnson said the team has also reached their success through a shift in strategies.
“Alliance partners are randomly assigned so we wanted to make sure that our team communicated with the other alliance,” Johnson said. “Since our robot was having some issues, we figured that if maybe some of our other alliance members could do something better then we let them do that while we did something else.”
Prior to the start of the competition, the scouting team collected data on the other team’s capabilities and robots. After collecting the data, the strategy and scouting team advised their drive team. Following that, they also communicated with their alliances, and assigned specific tasks to their robots according to their abilities.
Despite reaching such success, the team still faced setbacks along the way. Upon entering the competition at Battlefield High school, their robot, Guillotine, faced a malfunction in their first match.
“When the robot didn’t move, we were confused because we had practiced with the robot before and it worked,” robotics mentor Samuel Allen said.
Imagery captain and junior Kirsten Springer said the malfunction shocked the robotics team.
“I was panicking, I didn’t know what was going on,” Springer said. “I was just seeing the shock on our drivers’ faces, it was kinda like an ‘Oh no, what are we going to do?’ type of moment.”
The robotics team fixed and troubleshooted Guillotine’s code right away to get the robot back on its feet on their first match.
Junior Elena Bachman said the spirit of the team members fueled them at the competition despite the difficulties.
“I think people were really good about not giving up on all these problems that we ran into,” Bachman said.
After fixing the problems, Gryphon was able to make a comeback and win the matches with their alliance partners. At their quarter-finals, Springer said they battled with the same enemy for a best out of three.
As it was the first time in two years that the Gryphon robotics made the semifinals, the members said the win was hard to believe.
“After the match ended, they have to count the final score and it comes up on the board, for everyone to see,” Springer said. “It was at this moment when we just all started to think ‘Oh my god, we’ve actually done it.’”
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