Blog – FIX IT 3491

BC Championships!

After Victoria Qualifiers, we were able to go to Vancouver for the FTC BC Championships! The event was a lot bigger, and we met some old and new friends!

Setting up our pit (not struggling at all)

The first day of the 2-day event was practice matches. We did really well, but this day it didn’t matter because it was all practice.

FIX IT and PARABELLUM! BC’s 2 World’s teams reunited.

After the practice matches came the team social event, where there was some intense ping-pong, Mario Kart, and Indian food eating. This was super fun and also a good de-stress before the actual competition the next day.

Amren about to get smoked by Jackson in Connect 4

Competition!!

The following day we had our qualification and elimination matches. For some reason, we did a LOT better during our practice matches than we did in the qualifications. We did not finish with a very high placement, but we were still selected to be on the 1st place alliance.

FIX IT and Reynolds against the 4th Alliance in Semifinal Match 1!

Our alliance was unfortunately eliminated in this semifinal. So that was the end of the road for us, but then the award ceremony happened…

FIX IT won Inspire!! Upon winning 1st place Inspire at BC Championships, we received an invite to World Championships ion Houston, Texas (again). But we declined this opportunity, and it was passed to Forces Unknown.

We declined World Championships because we were one of the 48 teams across the world that received an invite to the Asia Pacific Open Championships! APOC takes place in Sydney, Australia. It takes a lot of time and money to get ready for this competition, and we have already been to World Championships. So we wanted to dedicate our time to getting ready for Australia. We wish Reynolds and Forces Unknown the best of luck with their fundraising and we hope they have fun in Houston!

As for everyone else in the competition, you all did amazing and should all be very proud of yourselves, because we are all proud of you! We look forward to seeing you all next season!

This is what happens when Christine leaves for 0.001 seconds

Victoria Qualifiers

Competition time!! After gathering inspiration from some insane robots and ideas at the Washington Interleague, we came back and made major improvements to our robot, strategy, and programming. This was all preparation for this event.

FIX IT chilling with a member of Reynold’s Reybots after trying to figure out why driver stations don’t treat us nicely.

It was a huge jump from our last Victoria competition (the scrimmage in November) to this. All the teams had new things up their sleeves, and it was amazing to see how far everyone has come. New strategies, new mechanisms, and so much more swept the competition. We taught other teams, and learned a lot too.

FIX IT was the 3rd place alliance captain!

Shoutout to team 20025 Esquimalt Atom Smashers, who were our alliance partners for semi-finals against teams 16195 Guild of Builders, and 22557 Mount Douglas. While the journey ended there for us, the competition was a thrill to be a part of, and a great opportunity to show and test our robot.

There were some shenanigans happening while waiting for awards…

Great jobs to all teams, coaches, judges, and volunteers!! None of it would be possible without everybody’s contributions. We’ll be seeing many of the teams at BC Championships on February 28th and 29th in Vancouver!!

Inspire Award at FTC Qualifier - Victoria

Oh right, we also won the Inspire award.

Washington Feynman Interleague

We may not have been able to compete in Washington this year, but we still wanted to go check out what the Washington robotics teams are doing. We took a ferry and drove for many hours to watch some amazing matches, talk to some awesome teams, and eat some Subway.

It was great to meet some of the Washington teams that we haven’t seen since World Championships, or that we haven’t seen since we last competed in Washington. Everyone had amazing robots and performed great in the competition!

FIX IT talking to Sushi Squad (collab of the century?!?!?)

Bryce giving Kai the FIX IT blessing (this is very prestigious according to nobody)

Unfortunately we had to leave just after watching the semi finals, but we watched a huge chunk of matches and learned a lot from the visit. We took our fresh knowledge back to Victoria and we will use it to improve our robot! Huge thanks again to all the Washington teams for making the journey worth it!

Also, you will NEVER GUESS who we ran into on the way back!!!!

Hope everyone has a happy holidays!!!

Victoria Scrimmage Nov. 2022

The Victoria Scrimmage was held at St. Margaret’s on Nov. 28, 2022. It was very exciting to see all of the teams in person and to check out their robots before the matches started.

It felt like we were queueing constantly. It felt like there was a lot we were bringing to the queueing table (beacon, sleeve, robot, driver station) which was stressful but the matches were very fun and overall it was great to see some of the rookie/underdog teams absolutely dominate with all of the experience and skill they had obtained. It goes to show that you can always compete no matter how long you’ve been involved with FIRST.

FIX IT Team with the robot at the Victoria Scrimmage

For all the results of the Scrimmage, check out the FIRST BC website!

Fall Trips

In September we went to visit both Amazon and Microsoft Headquarters in Seattle.

The Amazon Campus is located in the middle of downtown Seattle. It was sometimes a challenge to know what was or was not Amazon, but almost everything was!

“The amazon spheres were amazing. They looked very futuristic and filled with plants. There were lots of meeting rooms and creative spaces inside. It was like an environment simulation”

Next up was Microsoft. The Redmond campus was giving us some serious college campus vibes. There was a soccer field, restaurants, and well, people. It was quite high tech, with wireless chargers at every bench and seating area. It seemed like Microsoft was trying to centralize their employees’ lives, with restaurants, bike shops, and many other facilities on-site. They let us play a round of Apex Legends.

Johnson Space Center, and returning home

Today unfortunately marked the last day of our trip, but it was no less exciting than every other day. We went and visited the NASA Johnson Space Center!

Team members with the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft

We were able to see everything from a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft used to build the Internation Space Station, a replica Delorean in the exhibition, to seeing the actual control room for the Apollo 11 mission, and seeing all the controls and screens as they were in 1969!

Afterwards, came the sad part of the trip, returning home. We all had so much fun throughout the trip, from meeting teams from all around the world, competing at an amazing event, to visiting a NASA center and seeing the Gulf of Mexico, this was an amazing trip, and we hope to do it again next year.

Trip to Galveston!

With the World Championships now concluded, the team decided to head down to Galveston to have some fun and relax. Upon arrival, we had an amazing lunch at a local restaurant.

We then decided to enjoy ourselves at an amusement park, with the majority of the team deciding to go on some rides!

But much more importantly, we found a restaurant named “Bubba Gump Shrimp Co,” named after the movie “Forest Gump,” which our team deeply enjoys.

Team eating at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.

Today was an amazing day to slow down, relax, and take a breather after all of the excitement of the World Championships. We look forward to visiting the Johnson Space Center tomorrow before returning home!

World Championships Day Four (and last)

Today marked the last day of the World Championships, with absolutely amazing final matches displayed by their amazing robot, teams, and performances, and absolutely stunning finale!

The team preparing to watch the final match!

And although there were teams that won, and lost, we would like to congratulate ALL teams competing at the event throughout the week, and congratulations to all the Dean’s list nominees, finalists, and winners, and a special thank you to all of the fantastic volunteers that make events like this possible, without you, this would never have been possible.

After the event, came the worst part of every trip… Packing. So, our team decided to… Well, see for yourself.

We had an absolutely amazing time at the World Championships, and we hope to be back next year.

Worlds Championships Day Three

Today was the final day of qualification matches, we played the last 4 of our matches, getting a new high score of 221 points! Ending at a ranking of 137 out of 160. But much more importantly, we all had a huge amount of fun, including watching an amazing display of team mascots dancing in front of the fields!

And of course, following FIRST tradition, we wore a tiara for Tiara Friday!

Unfortunately, we were not picked for the alliance selection, but we would like to congratulate not only everyone in the finals but also every single team for their hard work and dedication, allowing them to compete in the World Championships!

Afterwards, we decided to indulge ourselves in some food trucks at the “Block Party” enjoying some delicious food while sharing stories around the table.

We ended the day with another swim and some card games, and we all can’t wait for tomorrow. Good luck to all the teams competing!

World Championships Day Two

Today we completed three more of our matches, performing a lot better than yesterday! We had a high score of 189 points! We were able to showcase not only our strength in scoring in the Shared hub while playing defence, but also to spin and score the ducks at the same time!

Scoring in the Alliance Hub, preparing to spin Ducks.

All of our team members also had some personal highlights from today’s event:
Amren: “I liked the kimchi fries and experience of Field Coaches and want to be able to pass the knowledge to younger team members. Specifically, practice everything you want the robot to do. It doesn’t matter how simple it seems, practice it! Now I understand how important it is to have someone watching the field and making decisions.”
Bryce: “It was great to talk to a team who we could relate to easily since they had an extending arm so we could talk about the woes of wiring moving arms.”
Hanson: “It was great to see some of the expos in the innovation fair, especially worth noting a mini copy of the Internation Space Station, which is able to mimic the ISS in real-time.”
Ishaan: “I liked listening to the Rap songs from different teams. They get a $100 gift certificate from our sponsor Actuonix.”
Jackson: “I liked looking at FRC, it’s bigger, louder, but the rules seem simpler and not as many points.”

Afterwards, our team decided to continue to try out amazing Houston Food! With Truffle Fries, Pasta, and Pizza, all in a Texas Style. And of course, with lots of work, comes with lots of fun:

We have a match first thing in the morning, and we can’t wait to get started!