BC Championships 2024

FIX IT was in the BC FIRST Tech Challenge Championships held in Surrey BC.   The top 24 teams from British Columbia and the Yukon were competing.   

Some of the highlights for our team were:

  • playing in the highest scoring match of the Qualifying Rounds. With Guild of Builders, we got a high score of game of 220 points including a 100 point perfect autonomous.
  • we had fun hanging out with other teams at the social on Saturday night.
  • thanks to FTC 18841 KSS One for choosing us to be on their Alliance.
  • Mecha mustangs had a really cool under glow on their robot. 

Of course, winning Inspire was our favourite moment of the day.

FIX IT will be competing at the FIRST World Championships in Houston Texas on April 17-20, 2024. Check out our Go Fund Me to help or contact us if you have a suggestion about a company who could sponsor our team.

November Scrimmage

On November 18, FIX IT was part of a CENTERSTAGE Scrimmage hosted by St. Margaret’s School in Victoria. It was our first event of the season, and the first ever event for two of our three drive team members!

Overall, we had a strong autonomous program that worked in most matches. Our robot could hang in end game. Unfortunately, our drone launcher lost the drone during the matches.

Our robot, Captain Hook, is very fast on the field. Even with a rookie driver, it was able to score lots of pixels in the backstage.



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
Bryce thinks he’s the GOAT (he is)

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…

INSPIRE?!?!?!

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.

FIX IT on the ferry and barely awake…

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!!!!

Team photos with Santa
HE’S REAL!!!!

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.

FIX IT at the Scrimmage

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!

24 Hours until Worlds!

It has all been leading up to this moment, everyone working together to design, build, and program the robot. Volunteering and organizing Outreach and Connect events, competing in scrimmages, and BC Championships, all to get to… The World Championships!

Packing up the Field and Robot

As we prepare to leave for our flight, we prepare to transport our robot, pack up our field, and prepare. In the past three years, FIX IT has qualified for the World Championships but never had a chance to compete due to Covid-19. For all of our team members, it will be our first time at the World Championships!

Thank you to the VI-Tech Park for providing us with a space to set up a field. We’ll miss our temporary digs in Mystic Beach!

We are all excited, and can’t wait to meet teams from all over the world. Safe travels to everyone!

Asia Pacific Open Championships

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!

The links to watch the previous live streams are available below:
Opening Ceremony
Matches Day 1
Matches Day 2
Closing Ceremony

Throughout this journey, we were contacted by two new networks – Chek News, and the Times Colonist, for a story!

On Chek News, we were featured in the 6 pm news!
In the Times Colonist, we were featured on their front page!

At the end of this event, we placed 17th in the competition. We all had a lot of fun, and we hope to do it again next year.

BC Championships – Season Wrap-up

BC Championships marked the end of the season for FIX IT. Although this year was challenging for everyone, we persevered; working together to build the best robot we could, and constantly improving our robot over time. Even though the pandemic has separated us physically, we continued to reach out to other teams and communities. We created and led workshops, while continuing to connect with companies such as Boston Dynamics and Battlesnake.

And in the end, this would all pay off in BC Championships…

This year gave us many firsts, both good and bad.

In FIX IT’s 12 year history, it was the first year we didn’t get to travel to and compete in Washington; the first year that we didn’t get to meet other teams in person.

It was also the first time we won the Inspire award in BC, and the first time we were part of creating a network in which all BC teams can communicate together – helping each other through the season, from giving each other advice to improve their robot, to providing outreach opportunities for other teams.

It’s almost time for our two seniors, Ines and Mythri, to leave the team. We’ll miss them, but hope to see them as Alumni volunteers at events!

With the season now finished, we’re planning on how to develop our skills this summer, reaching out to our community and connecting with other companies, as we prepare for next season. And we defintely need to find some girls to join our team. ( And wishing for a Water Game! )