On Saturday, Jan. 11, the BHS Robotics teams participated in the league finals bracket for the chance to take home the PM League Champion title.
Coming into the competition, 7422C was the top seed and picked as its alliance partner second-ranked 7422S. Team 7422B was fourth, and team 7422H was ninth. By the end of the day, three of the teams had won awards, and two had earned the chance to compete at states.
The alliance of 7422C and 7422S made it to the final match after winning their previous three matches. While they did not secure the final victory, 7422C won the event’s Design Award and 7422S won the Think Award. Both of these awards punch the teams’ tickets to the next level of competition.
“I am super proud of the work we did and I am looking forward to states,” said senior John Baranowski, the Robotics Club president and Team 7422C driver.
While the freshman team 7422B did not advance through the bracket, they ended up winning the Judges Award. The Judges award does not qualify for states, unfortunately.
“We attempted our best at the comp,” said freshman Angel Valiente. “Even though we didn’t make it as far as we intended, it was nice to still get an award.”
Teams 7422B and 7422H both still have a chance to get to the state competition through the Last Chance Skills Event. Instead of competing with a pattern and against another team, teams will try to get as many points as possible in one minute, in both their autonomous and driving modes.
The two Burroughs teams that are going to the Last Chance event are already planning and practicing trying to get a good score for driver skills. Team 7422B has come up with a plan to get 32 points in both driver and autonomous skills, with the goal of scoring 64 points. This score would have beaten the previous top score from their league.
While Team 7422B is practicing for the event, team 7422H is working on their design.
“We need to improve our robot to have a chance at winning at Last Chance,” said Team 7422H Captain Brenden Zirger. “Once our robot is better, we will start practicing runs of Driver and Autonomous skills.”
The Last Chance Skills Event will take place Feb. 8.
