On Saturday, February 18th a Robotics Tournament was held at Sahuaro High School. Around 40 teams from all over Arizona, and some from out-of-state, were supposed to come to Sahuaro to compete; some had to cancel last minute due to COVID complications, so only 32 teams attended. Three of the 32 teams in attendance were from Sahuaro.

The day started with a bunch of qualification matches where teams competed against each other. The main goal of the qualification matches was to get as many wins as possible so competitors could pick their partners first for the elimination matches. The elimination matches consisted of tournament-style brackets where teams faced each other with the losers being eliminated. The teams who won first place in the elimination matches will go on to compete at the state competition.

Unfortunately, none of the Sahuaro teams made it to State, but one of Sahuaro’s teams, consisting of three seniors – Logan Culliton, Brandin Miller, and Ricardo Ojeda Gomez – ended up taking third place in terms of skills for that day and making it all the way to the semi-finals. The winning pair of teams were Vexisential Crisis from Phoenix and Danny Guarantee from Buckeye. Even though the Sahuaro teams didn’t move on to State, they still had a lot of fun. Logan Culliton said, “You all learn from each other and are just there to have a blast.” Another Sahuaro student, Jack Merrit, added, “My favorite part is just hanging out with the other Sahuaro teams and cheering them on.”

Every year the type of game the teams compete in changes. This year the rules were relatively simple compared to past years. Each team had two robots. Teams score 2 points by getting green “triballs” onto the opponent’s side of the field and 5 points for scoring them in your team’s goal. At the end of the match, you can earn extra points (5-20) by elevating your robot. The points vary depending on how high your robot is compared to your opponent’s. The matches last 1 minute and 45 seconds. The first 15 seconds are for the robots to act on their own, known as the autonomous period. From what I observed, this was the least intense section of the matches. The next minute is for scoring as many points as possible while controlling the robots. The final 30 seconds are for either more driving and trying to score points on your opponent or trying to elevate your robots as high off the ground as possible. These two sections were always the most intense. Most teams used the same strategy: they used one robot to attempt to score points and one to hinder the other team. Many of the robots had pieces fly off, especially during the last 30 seconds.  Oddly enough, very few teams actually tried to score the “elevation points”, instead aiming to score a couple more points by getting “triballs” in their goal.

Overall, the robotic tournament was a fun experience for all who attended it, I for one can’t wait to see how the games evolve going into next year.