NP3 High Robotics Makes Team History

By Jack Fedor
Co-Editor | The Pacific Times

NP3’s Robotics team made team history when one of their teams made it into the final round at VCR Tipping Point Competition last month.

The 11-team tournament took place on Dec. 4 at Florin High School in Sacramento. Four teams from NP3 competed in the day-long competition against seven other teams from Northern California schools.

At the beginning of the competition, robots were inspected to ensure they met the 18-inch maximum length requirements.

Robotics matches have two parts during which two teams compete with each other against another alliance.

“The autonomous period is when the robot runs off of code, and the remote period is when a remote control is used to control the robot’s movements,” said Jireh Owen, a member of NP3 Robotics. “The autonomous period lasts for 30 seconds and the remote period lasts for two minutes.
The goal of the competition is to pick up two objects, hang a number of rings on an object and land the robot on a raised platform.

Following the qualification stage there were three rounds of playoffs, the quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals.

The top ranked teams at the end of the qualification stage are able to pick another team on their alliance for the playoff.

Team C which included Sean Sotto, Vivian Mai, Alvin Ao, Molly Trouchon, Ian Berry and Zahra Muhammad won five games and lost six games, landing them in 11th place overall.

“The alliance that we had was really nice,” said Mai. “They had organized notes about when they were working with the robot. We had a better performance this time as we won more rounds than last time.”

Owen and the other Team D members Vanessa Jauregui, Arjun Balasa, Kristen Chung and Khadijah Muhammad won eight games and lost three games, placing them in third place in the qualification stage.

Team D had their best performance in the quarterfinal round of the competition when they landed a victory within the last seconds.

“Our robot is structured on the principle that it is fast, able to balance well on the platform and move well, but it has trouble hanging the rings on the object,” said Chung.

Team B which includes Aleya Briones, Rudy Chavez, Marlei Gonzales, Aurora ‘Rory’ Phillips and Mackaelan Songco finished in first place in the qualification stage and lost in the finals of the competition.

Team B was unsure if they should select another team from NP3 for their alliance in the first round.

“We did not know who to choose as we ended up in first,” said Phillips. “We did not want to make other teams feel bad so we chose the team with the highest rank.”

Team B focused their robot on moving objectives. They had a robot with an arm which could pick up items off of the floor.

Team A included Sukhman Singh, Ronika Sidhu, Benjamin Chisum, Shazil Mahmood, Jagjeet Kaur and Hassaan Arshad. Team A was able to win an award from the judges which qualified Team A for the state robotics competition in March.

During each competition all teams are asked to do a presentation about their robot in front of a group of judges.

“Our teams have more to offer than the robot, and Team A is a very cohesive team with many veteran members,” said former NP3 High Robotics member and assistant coach Dilraj Gill.

NP3 High teacher and assistant Robotics coach Alejandro Chan-Artiga explained that Team A is the robotics team who works for the longest amount of time with their robot.

NP3 Robotics has confirmed their appearance in a competition on Jan. 29, but also is looking at having a competition on Jan. 22 depending on team preferences and COVID-19 case numbers.