Interlake High School’s Saints Robotics designed their robot to whir from side to side, grabbing oddly shaped rings on command with a pneumatic arm and hanging them almost a dozen feet in the air. They did so only with sanctioned parts, and with minimal help from mentors.
And they did it better than almost everybody else.
The team had a historic performance March 17-19 at the Seattle regional of the annual FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), which was composed mainly of high school students from throughout Washington state. Teams pitted robots built over the course of months against each other in a game called LOGOmotion, competing for a spot at the national FRC competition.
Not only did Saints Robotics win the tournament, sharing the award with two “allies” that they teamed up with in the final rounds, but they also won the Chairman’s Award. The designation is presented annually to the team that best embodies the “FIRST spirit” of “gracious professionalism while promoting STEM [science, technology, engineering, mathematics],” said team president and Interlake senior Kevin Kimura.
Either award would have qualified the team for the national competition; Saints Robotics broke precedent by winning both.
In addition, the team won the award for best website, and Kimura won a Dean’s List nomination for leadership, communication skills, and overall inspiration.
“Awards are nice, they make you feel really good,” said Kimura. “But its really about the journey and the process. And this has been the ride of my life. Overcoming obstacles large and small, like building, getting parts, designing processes, has been the most enjoyable part.”
The Saints Robotics team is composed of 60 members, each of whom put dozens or even hundreds of hours toward preparing for the competition. One of the components of building a robot is programming it to respond to commands and then for it to be autonomous. Interlake senior, David Woo, solely responsible for the coding, says that he spent hundreds of hours helping out with robotics over the course of the year.
Interlake’s team is heavily tied to their community; not only do they promote science and technology at events like Science Fairs, said Kimura, but also they have to raise thousands of dollars just to be able to compete.
“Its really cool to know that you’re inspiring younger kids to join or start high school robotics teams,” said Tyler Okamoto, a sophomore and the team’s media officer.
Kimura concurred, saying that it “helps to know that there are school programs besides sports … intellectual programs like robotics can be just as big.”
Although Saints Robotics were, by far, the biggest winners at the events, by no means were they the only. Several other teams also qualified for nationals, and other local teams also took home awards. Newport’s robotics team won the Creativity Award, and International’s team won the award for Gracious Professionalism.
Derek Tsang is an intern at the Bellevue Reporter. He attends Interlake High School.
