The Sacred Hearts Academy Lancers Robotics team finished this First Robotics Competition (FRC) season with the Autodesk Oregon Regional and the Hawaii Regional.

The Autodesk Oregon Regional was held on Mar. 8-10 in Portland, Oregon at the Memorial Coliseum. The team competed against 66 others during which members gathered new experiences to help them in other competitions. At the Oregon competition, the team won the Industrial Safety Award. This award commends a team for promoting safety both on and off the field, even during “the heat of the competition.”

“The Oregon competition really helped hone our robot and improved aspects of our robot that helped us do really well at the Hawaii Regional,” sophomore Angela Wong said. “It was very stressful.”

When the team returned from the Oregon Regional, it had one week to repair and prepare for the Hawaii Regional. The team spent the week reorganizing its game plan and improving and adjusting the robot.

“After Oregon, we came back to our lab to improve our shooter and made changes and created a new strategy for the Hawaii Regional,” senior and Co-Captain Lindsay Sanborn said.

“Our strategy was to fix our shooting mechanism,” junior Alexis Fraga said. “We also focused on balancing on the bridge, which turns out to be the best way to gain more points.”

The bridge is in the middle of the game field, and the competitors have to balance on the bridge which gives them an automatic 10 points. The players can get their robot on the bridge in the two minutes after the autonomous period, when they are able to manually control their robot.

The team competed at the Hawaii Regional from Mar. 22-24 at the Stan Sheriff Center at the University of Hawaii.

Co-driver Sanborn, said, “Our strategy was to balance on the coopertition bridge. You have to balance on the bridge with the other alliance, and although it does not give the team points on the scoreboard, it allows the team to rise up in place.”

The team ranked 8th out of 38 teams overall.

“Overall, the season was successful. We had some challenges, but we learned new skills to help overcome the challenges, and it was a great season to grow and learn more about robotics,” senior and Co-Captain Connie Wu said.

“I’m very proud of the team’s performance and collaboration within the team and with other teams,” Coach Chelsea Harder said.