by Aiden Neely
Mills High School’s robotics team, known as the Boba Bots, recently had the opportunity to compete at the FIRST Robotics World Championships in Houston, Texas. The competition consisted of 400 teams from around the world, all earning their spots at the competitive championships.
The Boba Bots were lucky enough to qualify through the veteran lottery system. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Senior robotics member C.K Lee explains, “I will never forget this incredible experience. I feel lucky to be able to attend before graduating.”
The team bonded throughout the five day trip, watching robots try to outscore each other and touring through the booths of colleges and businesses. NASA, Kettering University, Boeing Aerospace, and LEGO were all featured. At the event, there were hundreds of students from around the world and the Boba Bots had the opportunity to interact and learn from them.
Sophomore Cameron Li states, “It was so much fun interacting with students from all over the world and sort of bonding over this thing we all enjoy.”
The Boba Bots performed outstandingly, placing in the top half of the strongest division in the competition. Unfortunately, they did not advance to quarterfinals, but the Boba Bots were not disappointed. They immediately combined bleacher space with Burlingame High School’s “Iron Panthers” and cheered them on all the way to a world championship win. The Boba Bots were extremely proud of their own performance during the event; having played consistently-well each match. The Boba Bots made a name for themselves at champs, the robot zipping and scoring, piloted by a group of sleep-deprived but content Mills students.
The team was given 6 weeks to build the robot for this year’s challenge, scoring balls and panels into cargo bays. Each department set off to prepare for the upcoming competitions. The construction department first built the chassis, the gearboxes, and the game piece mechanisms. Then the electronics department came in and wired the robot. Finally, programming got a turn and fine-tuned the robots vision system and made sure all code was working properly. Meanwhile, the Public Relations department secured funding for the team through grants, sponsorships, and donations. Team members put in hundreds of hours during the build season, sometimes losing sleep. It was a stressful time for the team but it all paid off when the competition season rolled around. The Boba Bots competed in two regionals, ranking 21st out of 43 teams in San Francisco, and ranking 3rd out of 36 teams in Monterey.
The team flew out of SFO at midnight, leaving for Houston. Landing very early in the morning they immediately got to work, carrying their totes to the George R. Brown Convention Center. The Boba Bots spent the rest of their day tuning the robot’s vision systems to work on the field they had been assigned to, and played in practice matches. They found problems they needed to fix before they competed the next day and worked out any major kinks. The following day, the Boba Bots competed in the first match of the day, rushing to the field in order to appear in time. The Boba Bots continued to compete throughout Thursday and Friday, winning and losing matches. When Saturday came around, the Boba Bots were excited to hear whether or not they had been selected for an alliance. Unfortunately, they weren’t selected but when they heard their friends from Burlingame High School were selected for the best alliance, they were extremely excited and moved to cheer with their Bay Area friends.
This was arguably the best season of the Mills Robotics Team ever. They made it to Quarterfinals and Semifinals at two different events and made a name for themselves amongst other teams. It was the first time the team made it past qualification matches in 15 years, not to mention that the team qualified for championships. The Boba Bots are all very prideful of this season of robotics and it will be a memorable experience for all who went and participated.
