The American School in Japan robotics team club with their winning robot. AMERICAN SCHOOL IN JAPAN
The American School in Japan’s (ASIJ) robotics club team competed in the Asian VEX Robotics Competition in Taipei in November and took home an award for the third consecutive year. Team member and senior Momona Yamagami reports on the competition.
We waited nervously in the final moments. “And the winner of this round is …” The crowd was silent, holding its breath for the final verdict. “rrrreeeed team, 16–15!” We heaved a sigh of relief, before we went crazy over the black negation barrel that was just hanging over the goal where we scored the most points. Our team was made up of nine members, with senior Skyler Adams as our captain. We started building our robot back in August, and although we were planning to finish building by homecoming in October, and just work on autonomous, we ended up changing the design at least five times. A day of building the robot was not complete until we dismantled it at least once.
During the competition, we had a lot of close games, especially when our axle bent halfway through, when one of our batteries stopped working, and when the robot tipped over. Sometimes, we managed to put a white doubling barrel in our goal just seconds before the timer ran out, and there was another time when we somehow managed to quickly score a white in one of the goals, go back to our side, then score a black one on the opposite side of the field, all within 20 seconds. Although we had some technical problems, we managed to patch up the robot in time for all its games, and the robot and our drivers managed to pull victory after victory, until we held the title of Tournament Champions. Sure, we don’t run around throwing balls at each other; the robots do that for us—but the tournament was just as intense, with crowds cheering, heart-stopping moments, and a shiny trophy for us to bring home.
