Shockwave Robotics Team: Headed to Regionals!

Overall the team was happy with their performance and nearly all aspects of the robot worked really well. Chase M. '26 was amazing at driving, balancing scoring points and pushing other robots out of the way as they were shooting to deny them the chance to score. Jerry J. '27 and Oori L. '28 were constantly ensuring the code was running smoothly. Blake F. '29 did a stellar job filling in for Gavin N. '26 (who was out of town) during the judging interview and helping ensure the team had everything it needed for each match. Alana M. '26 shared about all the team's outreach at the Encinitas Oktoberfest and with Diegueno Country School, as well as several connections with professional engineers. Inder C. '27 and Nalani C. '27 were constantly connecting with the other teams to help ensure we had a plan for each match (since you get paired with a random partner for each match), as well as building relationships with other teams, which was what led us to get picked as an alliance partner at the end. 

In addition to the on-the-field match play, the team had a judging session in which they really impressed the judges in all categories. We then had 5 separate sets of judges come by our pit to do follow-up interviews with the team on all aspects of our robot and team objectives. The kids spoke eloquently, and Augie K. '26 showed masterwork level engagement with all the judges, explaining every aspect of the robot, from design, to build, to code, in exact detail. The team created a 15 page Engineering Portfolio documenting their engineering journey and explaining every aspect of our team and robot. They had trouble trimming it down to just 15 pages, but it turned out to be an amazing document that showcased their intellectual curiosity, trouble shooting ability, and dedication to FIRST robotics. Due to the quality of the notebook, and to the quality of the work and progress throughout the season that enabled everything contained inside the notebook, our team won the Think Award, which is awarded to the team that most effectively documents their "journey" through the engineering design process. Due to the combination of our success with robot play and us winning this award, we earned enough “Advancement Points” to move on to the San Diego Regionals competition on March 7.