What an exciting day! FIX IT won all three of their matches for a record of 5/6. We were in sixth place at the start of Alliance Selection and invited to join the fourth alliance.
Unfortunately, our alliance was eliminated in the semifinals.
After the final matches were played, it was time for the block party! There was dancing and even a photo booth. Here’s some pictures we took with some of the RoboKings.
Personal highlights of the day
Bryce – My favourite part about today’s competition was having to test our alliance partner candidate’s Autonomous in order to assist us in deciding who to pick.
Garrett – Explaining the Event and what FIRST is to a pair of curious university students that had wandered in.
Max – seeing how happy team VORTEX was after we chose them to be on our alliance.
Food/beverage highlights of the day
Garrett – Drinking Max’s 7 dollar green apple juice. It definitely wasn’t what he wanted.
Today we were up early to make sure everything was ready for our judging interview at 9:30, which went well.
Then there was time for practice matches before lunch, including our match with Gong Invaders who are an Aussie team we’ve gotten to know.
This afternoon was Qualification matches. Leia is doing well, but at this level of competition, you need two good robots to stand a chance. Our first match of the day was with a team 20870 Matrix from Mumbai, India. It was our high score for the season of 265 points.
The second match was a tough with our partner largely disabled in the substation making it very difficult for us to get cones to score.
The third match was against the US team, 8644 Brainstormers, who were one of the top teams at Worlds. Both FIX IT and our partner 11022 from Romania were excited to win that match. Currently we’re ranked 10th, which is great at a very competitive event!
With the competition wrapped up for the day, we had a quick dinner and headed to the Walangari Karntarwara Aboriginal show. It turned out to be an audience participation event!
The night wrapped up with a Trivia contest. Two of our team members came in second and third!
And just in case we forgot where we were, there interesting birds to see on campus and even visiting our hotel balcony!
Personal highlights of the day
Garrett – Winning our third match against The Brainstormers, we were not very confident but we pulled it off.
Max – We meet a really fun competitor from India! His name is Pai and he’s part of team Matrix 20870
Bryce – Since I was called to the field due to log file issues after matches ended, I was able to take some beautiful robot photos with the field in the background!
Food/beverage highlights of the day
Garrett – Got some brown sugar bubble tea at the university. Pretty good! Max – I had a lamington for the first time ever! It was decent.
Matches will be live streamed starting this afternoon (probably starting around 7:30 or 8pm July 13 Victoria time. Matches will continue on Friday afternoon/evening (Victoria time).
Full match schedule below. Note: the schedule was changed, so item below were updated.
Match Schedule today (local times, times are approximate, matches run when they can)
Today was the opening day for the Asia-Pacific Championships in Sydney Australia!
Our team got checked in, set up our pit, and completed robot inspection. Tonight was a friendship celebration with teams doing short presentations on their team, country, or whatever they wanted to share. It was lots of fun and there was lots of dancing!
Max- Seeing the name of one of the teams at APOC. It was a team from India named Team Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
Bryce – Rekindling the tradition of dancing with other teams at the friendship celebration! Many teams had dancing related presentations and asked the audience to join in!
Amren – I loved all the performances done by all the teams during the friendship celebration. A majority of them tied into their own cultures, but my personal favourite was the team that played Sweet Child O’ Mine by Guns n’ Roses live with a drum set and 2 guitars. As someone that does many musical performances, that was really, really good!
Garrett – I was so happy to meet up with the Gong Invaders! I took a picture with them too!
Food/beverage highlights of the day
Max- the fruit punch I had. It was very good.
Amren – I absolutely demolished a spicy chicken burrito at one of the restaurants in the mall. I also got a student discount on my drink!
Bryce – I made my own burrito and then ate it at a Mexican restaurant in the mall. I got eyed by the employees…
Garrett – The KFC (dirty bird) fries tastes like chicken! It’s because they use the same seasoning on the chicken as they do the fries.
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.
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.
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?!?!?!?
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!
Earlier this month, FIX IT competed in the Asia Pacific Open Championships hosted virtually from Australia. We all had a lot of fun in the competition, learning about many team’s extremely impressive mechanisms, and being able to experience competing with an alliance partner!
In this competition, Beyonce held her own! Our Autonomous program works very consistently, we are always able to score Wobble Goals in the drop zone when needed, and we can effectively collect and shoot rings in both the high goal and power shots!
