The SLUH Robotics team capped off three months of hard work with the FIRST robotics competition at Chaifetz Arena last weekend. 

The Robobills have spent the past three months designing, building, and testing their robot. The robot was built with the competition specifically in mind; many of the components were designed to complete a specific part of the course. It consists of a swerve drive train, a ball intake and shooting system using combinations of wheels and belts, and a climbing system that uses springs and pneumatic pistons to place 3D printed hooks on a bar and winches with nylon straps to pull the robot up. 

Once the robot was mostly finished, the Robobills took it to the theatre loge to test it with parts of the playing field they had made. During their week and a half of testing they made many small adjustments and modifications.

Last Wednesday, the RoboBills loaded their robot, some of their tools, and all the spare parts they thought they might need into their cars and drove to the SLU campus. They unloaded and set up their pit, a 10-foot by 10-foot area that would be their workspace for the next three days. 

Thursday morning the Robobills were back at Chaifetz to begin practice matches. In the FIRST Robotics Competitions, each match has three red alliance bots and three blue alliance robots who play each other. The alliance with the most points wins. There were three ways to score points this year: shooting into a ring (there was a high and low ring), moving during the autonomous period, and climbing a bar. 

Friday brought the beginning of qualification matches. Between 9:00 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. the team played eight qualification matches. After each match there were repairs to be made and programming issues to be fixed. The team also spent time scouting other teams to see how they built their robots and what their robot’s capabilities were as well as promoting SLUH’s own robot. 

By Friday evening, the team was ranked last, behind 36 other teams. “We had some issues the second day, but we still performed really well, “ said senior and Robotics Club president Matthew Leight. “But we got unlucky with our matchup pairings. Even though we did decently in most matches, we were let down by alliance members.” 

On Saturday morning, the Robobills played four more qualification matches, but failed to rise in the standings. While they were still struggling to rise in the standings, they had been in communication with one of the top teams. 

“One of the best teams there had been watching us. They saw that we had just been getting unlucky matchups and that we were much better than our ranking showed. They really wanted to be in an alliance with us,” said senior Henry Lebetter, one of the club’s vice presidents.

During alliance selection, a process where the top eight teams select the teammates they want in the playoffs, the whole team was on the edge of their seats. Only 24 of the 37 teams would make it to the playoffs. With the third-to-last pick SLUH was picked to join the third-ranked alliance. 

“It wasn’t the spot we thought we would get picked, but we got picked. It was amazing knowing that people saw the hard work we’ve put in and that our robot was much more capable than the rankings said,” said Leight.

Saturday afternoon, the quarterfinal rounds began. The Robobills and their alliance lost the first match in a best two out of three versus the sixth-ranked alliance. After a brief strategy discussion with their alliance, the Robobills won the second match and forced a tiebreaker. Unfortunately, the Robobills could not win the tiebreaker and were eliminated. 

“It was disappointing to lose, especially since two of our shots bounced out and if they had gone in we would have won, but we won a playoff game and that's something. We showed that we have a solid team and that we are a competitor and shouldn’t be counted out, despite what our standing said,” said junior Peter Roither. 

“These boys put in a lot of work, “ said moderator Craig Hinders. “It was great that they didn’t get too down on themselves because of their ranking. Mrs. Wellen and I are very proud of the work they’ve done.”