|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Amador Valley High School’s robotics team finished in fifth place at this year’s international RoboSub competition, where teams battled to create an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) that completes tasks to its best ability.
In all, 35 high school and collegiate programs from five different countries competed at NIWC Pacific’s TRANSDEC in San Diego from July 31 to Aug. 6.
AVBotz team members drove down to San Diego for the seven-day competition to embark on their long-awaited opportunity together. They embraced the journey and worked hard with one another through the ups and downs, as they knew all the long nights and time spent in a garage working on the project would eventually pay off, according to team representatives.
“The fact that we met so often during the school year and especially the summer, I think just shows everyone’s sheer dedication to this one project,” Craig Wang, vice president of software, told the Weekly. “Everyone has different motivations for why they are in this club, but we all share the same vision of preparing the robot to be as amazing as it can be. This beautiful outpouring of effort into one facet is what makes this project so rewarding and unique in my eyes.”
During the competition, however, unexpected software and hardware issues abruptly led to three grueling days of fixing and replacing different parts of the electrical system, with some members “pulling several all-nighters” in the process. As a result of the submarine’s issues, the team scored low during the semifinal runs, with team morale hitting rock-bottom, according to Wang.
Thinking they’d been eliminated, the team later discovered that everyone was granted one more opportunity in a “Third Chance Round” to gain more points, and their last chance to climb up the rankings. Despite running on multiple backup components, AVBotz capitalized by scoring almost 5,000 points to qualify for the finals.
From there, the team regained hope and put up a solid finals run en route to their ensuing fifth-place finish.
“Even though we did not place No. 1 as I had initially hoped, I am still very proud of what we accomplished because of our resiliency to continue pushing even when hardware failures brought us on the verge of elimination in the competition,” Eaton Huang, vice president of electrical, told the Weekly. “The fact that we were able to still solidify a top five spot in RoboSub speaks of many all-nighters and long grueling hours of debugging and recreating our entire motor control last minute.”
Over the past year, AVBotz members dedicated themselves to the program and shared the same goal of successfully preparing their submarine for RoboSub 2023, following the club’s second-place finish in 2022.
The team worked tirelessly together, learning many lessons such as the importance of trusting each other, having consistent interdivisional communication and personally understanding each other from a deeper perspective outside of the club, team members said.
“I cannot express with words how grateful I am to have worked with this group of dedicated and enthusiastic students,” Huang said. “I don’t think I could have ever spent my final high school moments with a better group of students and friends. The times I’ve spent with this team are one of the most memorable things I will remember for the rest of my life.”
“Continue showing dedication to the club,” Wang said in a final message to next year’s team, adding:
“We’ve shown time and time again that the amount of resources, knowledge, or talent does not necessarily matter. Instead, the most important predictor of success is how much dedication the team shows, including the time spent during the year, the time spent during the summer, and early-morning and late-night testing the team consistently conducts to get to their goal. It starts from dedication to the submarine and dedication to one’s craft, that really makes this club blossom and shine as a unique opportunity for high school students to work on this kind of tech. Good luck!”
