Throughout the day, the teams have a pit set up area where they can display presentation boards and prepare themselves and their robots for presentation and match competition rounds.
The morning hours of the tournament consisted of presentations where each team had to give around a five minute speech to a group of judges about their robots and related efforts. Throughout the judging period, teams have the chance to play other teams in practice matches to further prepare.
In the latter half of the day, the robot matches begin, and teams are eventually whittled down to the elimination rounds. These rounds consist of this year’s game, designed by First Robotics, called Decode, where the robots are to pick up two different colored balls and shoot them up into an area on the field; if they get them in a particular order, they get extra points. The teams get two minutes and 30 seconds, with the first 30 seconds being autonomous based on sensors, before they can remote control the robot.
At the end of the day, teams are recognized for winning matches, and awards are given out based on the judging rounds. However, each part of the day is important for teams because “you could advance based on how a robot did on the field, but you could also advance if you just had an outstanding portfolio and judging session,” said Aledo High School Engineering Instructor Kyle Christensen.
All four of the Aledo teams won judging awards and competed in the elimination rounds, with Circuit Breakers emerging victorious.
However, all teams advanced, with Maximum Resistance and High Resistance going to semi-regionals on Feb. 14 in Grapevine and Circuit Breakers and Overload heading directly to regional championships on Feb. 28 in Flower Mound.
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