Competitions – Page 2

Australia Day 3

Our first couple of days were packed with sightseeing trips to help everyone adjust to the Australian day. We’ve got one day left before the competition, so it was a more relaxed day with everyone picking their own sights to see.

Max- This morning, I stopped at Darling Harbor on my way to a gluten-free bakery. The food was amazing! After the bakery, I went to a massive mall in central Sydney. There were lots of cool luxury watches. Tonight I shopped at a market in Sydney’s Chinatown. There were so many vendors!

Garrett & Bryce- We started our morning with a short harbor walk through downtown followed by a ferry ride to the Sydney Opera House. After circling the Opera House we stopped for an enjoyable lunch nearby.

Once our meals were finished we took another scenic ferry to Manly beach. We ran down the beach then took a shoeless walk across the peninsula to take a swim at the much sunnier and larger beach. Bryce was able to swim immediately, but Garrett forgot his swimsuit, which prompted a speed shopping expedition in order to find some swim shorts for him to wear. Jumping the waves and body surfing was worth the ride!

Lastly, during our ferry home we bounced over some large waves, while the sun set beautifully over the Sydney skyline.

Amren – I woke up in the same house I’ve been staying at. Went shopping with the Dad and bought some warmer clothes since I underpacked for the Australian winter. Had a Greek food lunch at the mall’s food court, then went to Sydney opera house. I accidentally bought an $8 bottle of juice. It tasted really good, but not worth the $8. I kept touring around, bought some souvenirs for friends back home, and had dinner at an Indian restaurant with the family friends and my dad. Long day, but super fun.

See more photos

Australia – Day 2

Today was Kangaroo Valley. We spent the morning sightseeing on the way to Kangaroo Valley. There was a beautiful lookout (Sublime Point) near Wollongong and waterfalls in the national parks.

On the way into Kangaroo Valley, we had a group of Kangaroos jump across the road in front of us. The next thing we saw was an Echidna! It was just on the side of the road.

Our guide made us a great barbecue dinner including Kangaroo Burgers.

Then we wandered around with many wombats and kangaroos in the park.

Personal Highlights of the day

Max- Seeing the kangaroos. I like how they hop around

Garrett- Seeing the cliffs and waterfalls on the way to Kangaroo Valley. The views were stunning.

Food/beverage Highlights of the day

Max- The kangaroo burger. It was surprisingly good

Garrett- My beef, bacon, and cheese pie for lunch. It was very savory and delicious.

See more pictures from Kangaroo Valley.

Australia – Day 1

Today we went to see the Jenolan Caves. Our day started with a train to the Blue Mountains (Katoomba Station) and then a bus ride up to the caves. Our tour went through the Diamond and Imperial Caves. After the caves, we were able to stop out one of the Blue Mountain lookouts.

Team member highlights for the day

Amren: The blue mountains national park stop on the way back from the caves was super cool and reminded me of paradise falls from the movie “Up”.

Bryce: In the Jenolan Caves we saw helictites, which are limestone formations that defy gravity! It was a mystery for a long time how they formed. If you look careful at the photo, you can see what looks like little white stalactites that grow sideways.

Max: Seeing the Wallaby (it was very cute). I’d only heard about them before, and it was not what I was expecting.

Garrett: The rock formations that look like curtains, drapes or shawls. There was even one that looked like strip of bacon.

Traveling with a group of teenagers means that there are food/beverage highlights too!

Food/beverage highlights

Max: Donut (very yummy and very gluten free)

Garrett: Ridiculously good flat white coffee from a small cafe in Katoomba.

Amren: For lunch at the caves, the hamburger burger had beets in it?!?!?!?

See more of our photos from the caves and Blue Mountains.

FIX IT is going to APOC! (For real this time)

Help us get to Australia either by Sponsoring our team or through our GoFundMe. Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In 2021, we were invited to participate in a robotics competition – Asia Pacific Open Championships (or APOC) – which is held at Macquarie University in Sydney Australia. Unfortunately, the competition was virtual due to COVID. We lost the opportunity to experience flying internationally, and competing / working alongside other robotics teams that share the same passion.

As mentioned in the BC Championships post, we were once again invited to APOC! But due to our funding, we had to choose between World Championships in Houston, Texas, or Asia Pacific Open Championship in Sydney, Australia. Having gone to Worlds last year (and APOC being a more exclusive and rare event), our choice was Australia.

This trip will teach us about innovation around the globe, and allow us to demonstrate all the skills we have learned through robotics. We’ll get to compete with 48 great international teams.

The competition dates are July 13-16th, and FIX IT needs to raise about $40,000 before then to participate.

You can donate to FIX IT by writing a cheque to “Victoria Robotics Club” or donate directly under “Sponsor Us!” in the top right corner. Your contributions would be greatly appreciated!

Koala with Canada Flag — From FIX IT’s last trip to Australia in 2015.

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.

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!

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!