by Caden Dillon ’22

It’s Friday, March 11. I arrive at school at 7:30 AM and pack my bags in advance into the car of my good friend Sam Crandall ‘22. Thanks to a pestering parent, I’ve actually managed not to forget anything. We’re scheduled to leave at 3:00, when Sam will be driving me and several others to Connecticut for this weekend’s robotics competition. FRC Team 1350, La Salle’s own Rambots, will be competing. Sam has everything planned out—we’ll use our free period at the end of the day to do some basic preparations, getting a car wash and filling the tires for the two-hour ride ahead. In a tremendous display of foresight, a 19-hour Spotify playlist has also been prepared.

This year, FRC—the FIRST Robotics Competition—has put together a game called Rapid React, which has a few main components. In the center of the arena is the hub, made up of a high goal and a low goal. Robots on the field will have to pick up balls in their team color and deposit them in either goal to score, with the high goal awarding more points. Bonus points if the bot can score without human input in the first fifteen seconds of the match, the autonomous period. The corners are occupied by each team’s terminal, or ball storage, and the hangar—possibly the most interesting part of the playing field, essentially a set of four rungs arranged like monkey bars. Robots receive extra points if they end the match hanging from a rung, with more points the higher you go. Since the rules prevent bots from reaching a certain height directly, it’s a special challenge for teams to climb to the top rung.

Last period comes and goes, and Sam and I return to La Salle somewhat late, but with a vehicle that can safely be deemed exquisite. I retrieve my charging laptop from Mrs. Haijan (who has been dutifully guarding it in the library since 1:30) and make my way to Mr. Gray’s room to meet up with the team. It takes longer than expected to pack the robot and other important items into the U-Haul, and we end up leaving an hour late. The car ride is as beautifully chaotic as expected. The competition itself doesn’t start until tomorrow, so after arriving at the competition venue, Wilby High School in Waterbury, we spend the next few hours unloading our robot and setting up the pit, then make the ten-minute drive to the hotel for some shut-eye—or for some of us, lack thereof. Patrick Darrah-Powers ‘22 falls into the latter camp and discovers in the wee hours of the morning that his room key does not work, calling me to let him in the room. Unfortunately for Patrick Darrah-Powers ‘22, I am asleep.

I let Patrick in at 6:30 AM, when our alarm goes off. He has not slept a wink.

The team meets in the hotel lobby at 7:15, and we’re back at Wilby by 8. Our first match is in four hours, so the pit crew spends some time in the practice arena while our team photographer, Sruthelaya Mohan ‘22, takes photos and the rest of us spectate. When the first match finally begins, there are problems; an electrical system brownout is to blame. Still, we manage to score once or twice, and we end the round hanging from the second rung of the hangar for an additional six points. Our next two matches proceed in a similar fashion—when our bot works, it works well, but components are breaking left and right. We’re starting to really feel the lack of appropriate testing. There are bright spots, however. At 3:00, Dropkick Murphys’ “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” plays in between games. Eliz Ohanian ‘22 and Alexander Sano ‘24 engage in some impromptu Celtic dance, which looks suspiciously similar to the “Cotton Eye Joe” routine. It is a touching moment, the sort to revitalize the soul.

Our fourth match is our first victory, shortly followed by another in the fifth. At that moment, we are ranked 19th out of 40 teams. We get in two more matches—a loss and a win—before snowy weather cuts the day short, and we head to Buffalo Wild Wings for a team dinner. There is singing and general mayhem. The looming threat of daylight savings time, however, hangs over our sleep-deprived bodies as we return to the hotel. I sneak in five hours, a number that I suspect is higher than most. In the morning we discover the car doors are frozen shut, so everyone piles in through the trunk and most of us skip breakfast, electing to avoid the trouble of clambering over the other passengers. I sustain myself on popcorn and fruit snacks.

The second day of competition fares better for the robot, but not so for the Rambots. While the constant problems of day one are behind us, other teams’ effective defense keeps us dropping in the ranks. Another display of Celtic spirit ensures the vitality of my soul amidst eight chapters of Jane Eyre catch-up (thanks, Mr. Tanski), but our situation isn’t exactly ideal. By the time alliance selection begins, we’re at one win and several close losses, placing 29th. Alliance selection works like this: the top eight teams at the end of qualifiers become the alliance leaders, with each leader inviting other teams to a three-team alliance. The vast majority of invitees choose to accept. In the end, 24 of the 40 teams will move on to the playoffs, so we’ll have to have really caught another team’s eye to be selected.

A tense fifteen minutes pass. As more and more teams accept invitations to alliances, we begin to lose heart, and finally it is over. Team 1350 is out of luck.

We pack up the robot, our team banner, and tools, and depart the venue by 3:00. The car ride home is mostly uneventful. Several of us take the time to catch up on sleep. Music requests of “anything but Weezer” are taken; I make an unsuccessful attempt to sneak in a Weezer-inspired Tally Hall song. We make it back to La Salle just as the evening sets in, and bidding my friends farewell, I hop into the waiting car and go home. We may not have performed as well as we had hoped, but Waterbury is an experience we can learn from.

A month later, I can confidently say we have succeeded. Throughout March, we replaced faulty parts, improved what worked, and redesigned what didn’t. Now, with a full week left before the next competition, we have plenty of time to put the bot through its paces so we aren’t going in blind to any issues. Considering the Rambots tradition of staying up late to finish the robot the night before competition, that’s astounding. All that remains is to see how we fare this weekend. I could go on about lessons learned and morals of the story, but instead I shall finish with a plea to Mr. Tanski: spare us the homework this time. I anticipate your full compliance and offer my thanks in advance. Cheers!