Everyday, the robotics team has been building and testing out robots for their first competition ‘Battle in the Bluffs.’ This year AL hosted the tournament in the gymnasium and multiple schools came with their teams to see which school had the best robots. AL had 5 teams who were entered into this year’s game and a total of 16 students.
Robotics coach Justin Heckman says there was a lot of stress and nerves when going into this competition.
“It was definitely stressful for me, running a tournament is a big undertaking,” said Heckman. “For the freshmen on the team they have never been to a high school robotics competition so there was definitely some nerves.”
Junior Hunter Harmsen who is member of team 5813R or “Allen Keys,” and the CAD, game analyst, and builder, says he believed the competition went pretty well.
“I feel that our team did an amazing job, we took home two awards: Tournament finals and the Excellence Awards.” said Harmsen. “The Excellence Awards is the most prestigious and most challenging award to obtain in each VEX robotics tournament, requiring being among the top teams in rankings and skills, while also demonstrating a strong interview and notebook.”
Harmsen said the team lost the finals due to some small complications.
“We lost the finals match due to our alliance’s battery disconnecting, and were placed as tournament finals,” said Harmsen. “Even though we lost the finals, I am still incredibly happy to receive the excellence award.”
Junior Kaim Robicheau who is also a member of “Allen Keys,” and is the notebooker and CAD of the team said their team did excellent.
“We placed 9th in Qualifications, 2nd in the skills, and 2nd in the elimination bracket,” said Robicheau. “This was our 3rd competition we have been to, but this one felt a lot better to me than the rest. Our team felt more confident going into it, and we were amazed by how well we did.”
Junior Michael Donovan who is a member of “Allen Keys,” and the main driver, and builder, says he thinks the team did “swell.”
“The competition earned us our third qualification and an invite to the regional event which is the US opens,” said Donovan. “We also got second overall and second place in robot. It felt really good.”
Junior Matthew Ochsner Jr, a member of “Allen Keys,” and the programmer, builder and notebooker, says the competition was a little stressful but it was all worth it.
“The competition went nearly as well as it feasibly could have, with our team ranking as the 9th seed for alliance selection purposes and advancing to the finals,” said Ochsner. “The competition also allowed us to become the number one-ranked team in the state of Iowa for Robot skills.”
Freshman Jase Bessy who is a member of team 5816S or “Sol” thought the competition went amazing.
“Thanks to the competition we got new ideas after losing a few matches, and then we also learned what we wanted to aim toward, which would be for our robot to be full on offense,” said Bessy. “We ended up coming in 23rd place, and sure, that isn’t 1st place, but it wasn’t last place either, so we were happy with what we could get for our first year.”
Bessy said he thought the team would be nervous but it was quite the opposite.
“The competition was very fun. I thought we would be stressed out throughout the whole thing, but my team grew into the sport and just did what we thought was the best to do, like switching goals for matches, switching to offense when we were full defense, arguing over who drives and who doesn’t, either way, it was an amazing experience,” said Bessy.
Freshman Abel Mass who is a member of “Sol” said there were some complications but it would help in the future.
“Our robot broke a lot, but that made us realize that there were a lot of things we needed to change about our robot,” said Mass. “It was a bit nerve-racking, as it was our first tournament of the season. The atmosphere was very competitive, but I found it extremely fun to do.”
The overwhelming success that the “Battle in the Bluffs” had brought has left the teams ready for the next competition and ready to face more challenges. Other competing students were senior Blake Haggerty, sophomore Tori Hansen, freshman Liam Buck, freshman Lilah Scully, freshman Even Veit, freshman Elliot Heckman,sophomore Zedekiah Wolf, junior Mason Olson and freshman Rachel Mejia Tharp.
