This past week the team attended our final competition of the season, Worlds. Now, like any sporting event,  the nationals or the worlds competition is for the best of the best in the sport, robotics is no different. Teams from China to Lebanon were in attendance of this week-long robotics event.

The Event

As I mentioned before, the championship was for teams all over the world. The championship also spanned almost the whole week and was for all levels of FIRST. The event took place in the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston. FLL Jr., FLL, FTC, FRC, the Innovation Fair, Scholarship Row, and various other FIRST attractions were spread out all over the center.

The FTC championship was separated into two divisions, Franklin and Jemison. FIRST likes to name their divisions after famous people in science or history. Franklin was named after Benjamin Franklin and Jemison after the first African American woman to travel into space, Mae Jemison. Each division had their own matches until they had their division winner. Then the two divisions had a final match at Minute Maid Stadium, across the street from the convention center.

The pits were also a very fun place to be. Teams were each given space for a 10×10 pit. Our pit was made out of the same 8020 from Supers. We didn’t have any major changes to our pit besides keeping it a little more organized.

The Matches

After supers we decided not to make any major changes to the robot in an effort to allow the Software team to practice our autonomous routine. In fact the only changes we made to the robot were new intake blocks and an new design on the intake bar.

Each team competes in nine matches total. These matches were spread across two days. We had several good matches, but we were affected by connectivity issues. We had several great alliance partners and played some interesting matches. By the end of the matches we won 6 out of 9 of our matches.

Next was alliance selection. We did not get picked by the top seeded alliance, but it was good experience talking to the different teams.

Overall Experience

Our first overall experience at Worlds was a very good. We now know what we need to improve on for next year and we are already setting our goals. Now that we have had a taste of the higher competition levels in FIRST, we are looking forward to competing for a spot at Worlds next year.