From April 28 to May 4, the Pascack Pi-oneers attended the FIRST World Championship—a high-energy, multi-day event where top high school robotics teams from around the world compete with industrial-sized robots. The Pi-oneers proudly brought home the Judges Award, adding to their growing collection of achievements.
Within Pascack Hills, the Pascack Pi-oneers is a FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) team that competes both locally and nationally using industrial-sized robots, with opportunities to attend the FIRST World Championship and face off against teams from across the globe. The Pi-oneers offer students a unique chance to explore STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) disciplines, especially if they are interested in fields such as engineering, carpentry, electronics, chassis design, computer-aided design (CAD), programming, graphic design, publications, information technology, public relations, animation and more.
This year, the Pascack Pi-oneers team had the opportunity to compete in the FIRST World Championship after competing and qualifying at the FIRST Mid-Atlantic District Championship. In the FIRST Mid-Atlantic District Championship, robotics teams earn points from a combination of three events in order to qualify for the World Championship. The Pascack Pi-oneers have qualified for the Championship consistently for almost every year in the club’s existence.
Hosted in Houston, Texas, this year’s FIRST World Championship lasted almost a week—from April 28 to May 4. The competition portion of the trip to Houston was held in the George Brown Convention Center, where many teams gathered with their final projects to compete and showcase their creations.
On the first day of departure from Pascack Hills on their way to Houston, the Pi-oneers mainly encompassed traveling and getting settled in portions of the competition. The Pioneers woke up in the early hours of the day to leave their parents, took a bus to the airport, flew for 4 hours to Houston, and then settled into their hotel. Following these travels, the team experienced a small excursion to the NASA center, where they stayed for about 5 hours exploring the center and learning more about NASA’s system before they shortly returned to their hotel for dinner and curfew.
Moreover, the next day, the Pascack PI-oneers broke their sleep at around five and traveled to the George Brown convention center, where they were able to have breakfast. After this, the team scouted looking for better alliances and then had a scout meeting with two other teams (Mort team 11 and another FRC team). To prepare for the competition, the team, after their scouting meeting, did a practice run on their machine shortly before they returned to the hotel with some free time on their hands.
The next two days, the team spent their time at the George Brown Convention Center scouting, presenting their project to the judges, and, as usual, returned to the hotel for dinner and free time. This was the day for which, unfortunately, the Pascack Pi-oneers’ journey to competing in the final match had ended, since they were unable to qualify for the Alliance selection, which disqualified their participation from the next round. Despite this dismaying outcome of the competition, the Pascack Pi-oneers held their heads high and maneuvered through the rest of the competition with an ambition to learn, accept, and have fun!
Finally, the final day of competition arrived–this was when the last two standing FIRST teams would compete for the world championship title. This match is known as Einstein. The outcome of the Einstein match was the victory of the Newton Division alliance, which consisted of teams from Madera, California; Mill Creek, Washington; Lafayette, Indiana; and Burlingame, California, which beat the Johnson Division alliance. The Pascack Pi-oneers watched this match before again returning to the hotel, having dinner, and spending their last day with some personal free time.
On the last day of the trip, the team prepared for their return and went on a few excursions to end the season with some fun. The team had the opportunity to ride on motorized boats, play football, have lunch, and do some homework before going on the plane and returning to Pascack Hills at 2 a.m. the next morning.
Although the team wasn’t able to bring home the World Champion title, they didn’t come back empty-handed. The Pascack Pi-oneers, with great effort and a high morale, returned with the Judges Award–an award praising the team’s unique efforts, performance, dynamics, and merit recognized by the judges’ panel. This award exemplifies the team’s success in fulfilling the principles of the FIRST competition, the positive aspects of the team, and the positive attribute or feature that is not included in the criteria for other surface awards.
As the Pascack Pi-oneers return and reminisce about their trip to Houston, the Pascack community recognizes and celebrates the success and work put in by the team. Being able to participate in a STEAM-centered extracurricular activity is already difficult; however, being able to participate in international competitions for it is an achievement that deserves a standing ovation.
As the Pascack Pi-oneers embark on a new year of robotics, there is no skepticism about the acceptable and enthusiastic qualities, success, and pride they will bring to the Pascack Hills community.
