Wildcat robotics team compete at states

By Lucas Sayrs 

Staff Writer & Editor

It was the day of the big competition and the Konawaena Robotics team was getting ready to board their flight to Oahu. They had been working hard for months and were excited to showcase their robot's skills.

As they boarded the plane, they all felt a sense of nervous excitement. They knew that they were up against some tough competition, but they were ready to give it their all. 

Once they arrived on Oahu, they headed to the competition venue. They walked in and saw some of the other teams' robots. Some were very impressive and they knew they had their work cut out for them.

Konawaena Robotics Team 826a was having a tough time at the Oahu Vex Robotics Tournament. They had lost a few matches and their robot had some real problems with coding the design. The team was getting frustrated and wanted to give up. However, their coach told them to keep going and to fix the flaws in their design. 

Konawaena robotics did very well at the Oahu robotics tournament for some matches, the team has always struggled with design flaws in their robotics program. Their robot was paired with some excellent robots and won a few rounds. The team was very excited and proud of their accomplishments. Later on in the competition, the flaws of the group started to show, one game they forgot to turn on their pneumatic reservoir, the robot did not fire its expansion  and they lost the round

Kaili Scarborough is the leader of the Konawaena High School 826A Robotics team. He and his team have been working hard all year to build a robot that can compete in the annual robotics competition. The competition is only 3 days away, and Kaili is feeling the pressure.

He is up late every night working on the robot, and he is starting to feel burnt out. On top of that, his team is starting to get stressed out and fight with each other. Kaili knows he has to keep his team together if they have any chance of winning the competition. 

The next day, the competition begins. Kaili and his team are ready. They put their all into the competition and their robot does well. In the end, they finished last, design flaws and lack of testing made their bot not work in some matches. The expansion device on their robot would fail to shoot and lose the match for our team.

Kaili has built multiple iterations of a robot that can launch foam discs with precision, expand its surface area, and spin rollers, all of which give your team points in the matches. After the horrendous failure at the Oahu finalists tournament, the team prepared for the next tournament at Kamehameha Schools, also in Oahu.

All of the team were ready for the tournament, a new design that could complete all of the tasks in the game, and a mindset ready to take on the competition, unfortunately when the team arrived at the tournament for inspection, the judges pointed out all of their design flaws, plexi glass that was too thick, illegal parts and much more. 

The team was devastated, their bot could barely work after correcting their mistakes. The team finished second to last, after facing all of the hardships of the tournaments and placement competitions the team felt distraught and exhausted. Although they may not have done well at any of the competitions, the team learned to face hardships, cooperation, and to never give up.

Editor's Note: Staff Writer Lucas Sayrs competed in this event with the robotics team.