The Mills High School Robotics Team, otherwise known as the Boba Bots, work yearly to fabricate, code, and build a robot to complete a certain task when competing in games. The team meets weekly Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Headed by two team captains, the Boba Bots are comprised of four departments: Construction, Programming, Public Relations and Electronics.
The Boba Bots participate in several competitions annually. The team prepares for the upcoming year’s competition by teaching new members and working on side projects. Boba Bots compete in the First Robotics League under the program “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology” (FIRST). FIRST has four subdivisions which are Lego League Jr., Lego League, Tech Challenge, and Robotics. Robotics is the high school division of FIRST in which teams around the world compete in skill games.
The games vary from year to year with a different objective each time. For example, the 2018 game was called “Power Up” with the objective of putting cubes on a scale to balance in your team’s favor. To succeed in putting cubes on a scale, a team must build a robot that can drive, intake, and deliver cubes to the location. “The construction team built the robot with the intention of having it lift up to eight feet in height, so we could reach both the switch and the scale during the game,” explains Co-Construction Lead Roxanne Liang.
Recently, the Boba Bots attended two off season competitions. An off season competition uses the robot from last year to compete. On October 5th and 6th, the Boba Bots competed in the Cal Games at Woodside High School. The team ranked 27th out of 36th but was not discouraged. Two weeks later, they attended the Capital City Classic all the way in Davis, California. The competition went very well as the team placed 19th out of 45 teams. “The competition was fun! I can’t wait for the next one,” expressed first year member Caia Foster.
The Boba Bots have many goals in mind this upcoming year. They hope to improve the separate team departments and the team as a whole. Operations Captain Madeline Hain hopes “…that members will walk away from this season with good experiences, whether we rank first or last! I want to make sure our environment is not toxic, and that everyone feels welcomed.”
The Boba Bots as a team has gone through many challenges and changes throughout their almost 20 years of competing. The present day team is made up of students from all grades and backgrounds. The team even has a majority of female leaders. The hope of current members is to keep the team going for as long as possible. Boba Bots welcomes any new members and encourages those who are hesitant to drop by to see what they are all about.
