By Amelia Naughten, Staff Writer
On April 8th, 2023, the competition season for the Boba Bots was brought to a close. At their first competition of the season in UC Davis, Sacramento, the Boba Bots fell short of last, ultimately placing 41st out of 46 teams by the end of the competition. While they didn’t win any awards, they were able to use the experience, and improve in the week before their second competition at Silicon Valley. Two weeks later at San Jose State University, the team reached a record high of 12th place before dropping to 39 of 59 teams.
The Boba Bots, numbered team 253, is the Mills FRC (First Robotics Competition) team founded in 1998. The club is composed of four departments that work together to run the team including construction (builds the robot), electronics (wires the robot), programming (codes for the robot), and operations (publicity and business).
Following the release of the new robotics challenge in early January 2023, members in the technical departments engineered a robot that could score cones and inflatable cubes on tiered shelves (the higher shelves being worth more points) and balance on tilting platforms at the end of the match for additional points. In operations, members collaborated on award submissions, merchandise design, and event coordination. By the first competition, attending members had inputted over 40 hours each, with electronics member Ayushi Swami (9) logging the most time at over 120 hours spent active in build season.
For their first competition of 2023, the Boba Bots drove three hours to attend the Sacramento Regional alongside 45 other teams, one team even coming from China to compete. Throughout the qualification matches, the Boba Bots were faced with consecutive losses, finishing with a record of two matches won out of the ten matches played. Operations Captain Katie Ip (12) remarked, “Our robot was functional, but it wasn’t as good as we thought it would be…We had no driver practice before our regional, so our practice matches at Sacramento Regional were the first time the drive team actually drove the robot.”
While this competition did not go as the Boba Bots had hoped, the team maintained a positive mindset and focused on ways of improvement and the many team bonding memories made in their time spent together. Newly joined member Yashvi Patel (10) recounts, “I was excited for the Sacramento Regional because it was my first competition, and it was really fun being able to see all the robots…I also just loved hanging out with the other robotics members outside of the competition.”
After returning from the week-long spring break that followed the Sacramento Regional, the team rejoined to hold a post mortem in which they reflected on their goals for the next competition, Silicon Valley Regional. Main focuses that were generated at the post mortem were to dedicate more time to robot driver practice and to redesign the strategy team to become more efficient. As Ip explained, the main goal targeted in the team’s limited time was to get “to a point where we don’t have to worry about the robot breaking and can focus more on the strategy.”
The friday of April 7th at San Jose State University, not only did the Boba Bots achieve these goals, but operation member Jennifer Lo (11) and imagery lead Natalie Luong (11) had crafted a mascot costume and banner for the team to amplify their spirit when cheering on the drive team during matches.
Unlike at Sacramento Regional, the Boba Bots started off strong at Silicon Valley, winning their first two matches. The Boba Bots went on to win three more matches, placing at a high of 12th place out of the 59 attending teams near the end of the first day. The Boba Bots were hopeful that this trend would continue, as Luong remembers, “We ranked the highest we’ve ever been, or at least since I joined in Sophomore year.”
However, in later matches that were lost, the Boba Bots dropped to 39th place, and after qualifications, they were not chosen for a position in the finals. Despite this, the Boba Bots once again continued with upholding sportsmanship through cheering on other teams.
Although they will not be attending FRC competitions for the rest of 2023, the Boba Bots are still keeping active in the community through their outreach events and programs. At the same time, the end of the competition was also a bittersweet moment for graduating seniors on the team whose time in First as a competing student had come to a close.
Ip joined Boba Bots in her freshman year, and views her time spent with Boba Bots as an experience that transcended what she initially “signed up for.” She reflected, “I’m really glad I decided to stay because being in robotics I made so many friends I would not have made just going about high school…Robotics is one of those clubs where you’re working so closely with everyone to the point where you know everyone on the team, so it was nice to have a space where you could bond. I learned a lot from robotics that I did not expect to learn, such as leadership experience from being an Operations Lead and Captain.”
Tech Captain Charles Yao (12), who also joined the team in his freshman year, expressed similar sentiments concerning his time in Boba Bots: “Being committed to the Boba Bots eats away quite a bit of your schedule, but you are able to learn and apply STEM skills that traditional AP classes can’t teach.”
Both captains agreed that this year, the team had improved significantly with the increase of general member participation. At the same time, the team looks to improve scheduling to avoid last minute conflicts and drive team efficiency that had plagued them throughout the 2023 season. Ip concluded,“I hope the team grows and we keep doing what we’re doing, and that we keep this room a fun space for people,” serving as a reminder that regardless of struggle or triumph, the Boba Bots will always preserve the unique culture of Mills robotics.
