By: Anya Gupta
The El Segundo High School Robotics team, also known as the P.O.T.A.T.O.E.S. (People of Tomorrow Applying Outstanding Engineering Skills) have faced yet another incredible VEX arena competition to go to State later in the year. The competition was held on February 18th, 2023 at the McBride High school in Long Beach where our ESHS VEX Team 1759 P had competed in a local competition to go to State. There are seven members on VEX Team 1759 P, each contributing their time and effort in certain roles to allow their engineering skills to dive further into the engineering industry. Our team consists of project managers, leaders, programmers, and builders all incredibly vital to VEX Team 1759P.
When the competition had arrived last Saturday, our team was ready to face the rounds ahead: they would be teaming up with another group to form a red or blue alliance and compete against another alliance in the VEX arena. There were a total of four robots per match as six matches and elimination rounds occurred in the ten-hour timespan from 8AM-6PM. Outside of the main event, other, smaller events such as the skills event allowed the team to showcase their other talents to the judges. Additionally, 1759 P had the opportunity to receive a myriad of awards based on the robot's excellence, design, and innovation (the robot was named French Fry since the team was called the P.O.T.A.T.O.E.S.).
Once the competition began, the team had a good lead and won three out of the six matches. Unfortunately, they lost in the first elimination round, throwing them out of the entire competition—however, they had much success with scouting when the judges and scouts would come to interview the team and their robot. This was one of the many successes from the competition due to the effective tri-fold made by one of the marketing designers at the club. The team was also successful in having testing their parts such as the expansion, fly-wheel, intake, and mecanum drive. Some challenges faced included the poor execution of the autonomous mode which was negatively affected by the rollers, and the team wishes to improve this (as things were done last minute). But overall, the competition went decent as our ESHS VEX Team 1759 P has done it yet again and proved how diligent they are with their attendance and performance at the competition!