On Saturday, Nov. 18, robotics teams in the Fox Valley South Region (as categorized by FIRST) gathered at Wheaton Academy for the first meet of the season. Unlike in years past, this year, WEGO robotics has both a rookie and Varsity team, both of which participated in the meet.

Teams arrived at 7:50 a.m. to setup and make any last-minute adjustments and fixes to their robots before the tournament was scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. Teams also used preparation time to gather information about competitors’ robots, exchanging ideas and strategies, a practice encouraged by advisers and organizers alike.

“I think it’s part of a well-rounded education to gain experience working with others, and this is a great example of that,” head referee Kat Svobda said.

Before anything else, teams were randomly paired together, assigned either the red or blue alliance for every individual round. The actual competition is split into two sections: Autonomous, a period of time where teams will activate their “autonomous” mode, a list of preprogrammed instructions for the robot, and a driver-controlled period. Points scored in the autonomous section are worth significantly more points than those scored in the driver-controlled period.

At 11:30 a.m., two hours later than the scheduled 9:30 start due to technical difficulties, the competition began. The objective of the game was to score more points than the opposing alliance. Points were scored in a variety of ways, but the primary method of scoring involved placing small plastic hexagonal pieces called “pixels” on their alliance’s backdrop. Additional points could be scored by launching a paper airplane from the robot, or by hanging from an alliance-specific truss.

At the end of the competition, Varsity robotics and their robot, Affogato, came away with two rounds won, three rounds lost, and an overall league placement of 12th.

The rookie robotics team ended the day with a record of three rounds won, two rounds lost, and an overall league placement of fourth: a feat many considered an impressive display by the rookie team.

“It was just really fun, talking to other people and getting to see everybody else’s ideas on how to accomplish the same goal,” sophomore and rookie robotics member Kody Leano said.