Practice makes perfect.
For members of the Garden Street Academy Robotics team, that saying holds true. It proved to be a winning mantra that paid off with the overall top honors at the 19th annual Greater Los Angeles Regional Botball Tournament in Burbank on April 29, 2017. Our Middle School Robotics team took home fifth place against 22 other middle and high school teams. As described by the international program itself, Botball is an “Educational Robotics Program engaging middle and high school aged students in a team-oriented robotics competition, and serves as a perfect way to meet today’s new common core standards.”
Our Middle School team is made up of seven students: Sofia R., Drin Y., Erin C., Julian D., Kai U., Alexander B., and Owen H. The High School team is made up of three students: Adara B. (sophomore), Liam K. (sophomore), and Natalya F. (senior) who will be attending the University of California, Berkeley starting next fall.
Our robotics team is small in relation to other robotics and engineering groups in the Greater Los Angeles region, however with close camaraderie, each member’s talents are utilized. Relying strictly on their technical wizardry, Garden Street Academy managed to exceed its own expectations by winning the tournament’s overall first place trophy. The team refined its game plan with a final practice session last Friday night in the Garden Street Academy’s Robotics room, the day before the tournament. Adara, a sophomore and third year Robotics team member, said “Engineering is a possible future career of mine and I like Botball because it lets me see the software and hardware side of mechanical designs. I’ve done Botball for the last three years; in our first year we averaged nine points in the competition, and in this last event we got a high score of 78. While I mostly do it as a learning experience, it was great to walk away with first place. Even though the team is small, we work well together and were able to get a lot of things done due to the extensive commitment of all members.”
The High School Robotics team got the Judge’s Choice Award for mechanism and strategy, and also took second place in both the seeding and double elimination portions of the competition. These awards, combined with their excellent documentation score, resulted in them winning the tournament and bringing home the first place trophy. See full tournament results here.
