Written by Lucinda, Year 10
On Friday 21st June 2024, Cubotics, Oxford High’s very own robotics team, headed to First Tech Challenge’s National Championships. After coming out on top at the regionals, we were both determined to do well and anxious to prove ourselves.
Our team, a handful of year 10s specialising in everything from CAD to strategy planning to engineering and coding, had been working tirelessly during lunchtimes and after school to perfect our robot (affectionately nicknamed Cubo). By the competition, Cubo could, somewhat reliably, launch paper planes, suspend itself on a rigging, and pick up plastic pixels, folding them underneath with an innovative arm design, which we won an award for at regionals, before placing them on a backboard. This could be done both under driver control and independently.
The matches, composed of an autonomous period, driver control period, and endgame, were both tiring as we raced to win points and find strong alliance partners, and rewarding as we climbed the rankings until we reached the semifinals! In a humbling anticlimax, we were beaten by another team’s robot (by a fractional margin, may I mention, 133-138), but were pleased to have made it so far into the competition as only a second-year team. Our team members worked incredibly hard, as well as our teacher Mr Watts, who unfailingly hosted sessions to work on the robot almost daily during the run-up to the competition, and offered support and advice as we made our mark on the FTC landscape. Finally, huge thanks to TJC who sponsored us again this year, enabling up to purchase additional motors to help tackle this year’s more challenging competition.