Tuesday 25th February 2025, East 1 Qualifiers at Cambridge Science Centre! After all our preparation it was finally time to see our hard work pay off, and pay off it did. We were part of the Winning Alliance and won the Inspire Award! We couldn’t be more proud and everyone was super supportive; it was a fantastic day.

Travel and Arrival

Our school has 3 FTC teams: one comprised of Year 7s, another Year 8s and 9s, and us. We all met up at Cambridge Train Station at 7:20 – an early start for most of us – where we signed in with our teacher and the very kind staff that were accompanying us for the journey and day. Getting on and off the train wasn’t much of an affair; we only had to go one stop before getting off from there we walked to the centre. We were all in good-spirits as we went, all of us chatting and having fun.

Once we made it to the centre we unloaded our boxes and the robots and set up in our area. We hadn’t had much time to practice with the robot before the competition date as it was only finished a little bit before so we aimed to arrived a bit earlier to test driving, ensure both drivers were happy with everything, and that the robot was functioning as supposed.

Judging and Inspections

Soon enough, after the opening, Inspections and Judging began. We were called up for Field Inspection first, which held us up a bit as there was a small complication to resolve. Before that completed, we were called to Judging. Judging started a little rocky due to us being nervous and our presentation not wanting to load – but the judges were lovely, being perceptive and enthusiastic which allowed us to get into the flow of things and continue regardless of our half malfunctioning presentation and by the end of it we felt confident and quite sure of ourselves. Once we finished, we were immediately called off to Robot Inspection which was completed with ease. We checked the completion board and then saw that our Field Inspection wasn’t finished causing us to go back and fix the minor complication and then we were ready.

Qualification Matches

Every team played 5 matches.

Our first match was the very first match of the day; we were against both of our school’s other teams and it was a very tight match. We expected to lose: when the match ended the other alliance had far more points than us but, when the results came out, we’d won! And very narrowly as well, only beating them by one or two points.

Our second match was very surprising. It was the third qualification match, and after a tough game with excellent competitors and a great alliance partner it resulted in a tie: a result none of us, in all our time, had ever seen before. However, one of our teammates, Alessandro, brought up a point of question with a sample that was just over the tape, leading to a very narrow win for us.

Our third and fourth matches were both losses. They were the sixth and ninth matches of the day; both were graciously lost and tough matches all round. After losing the third match, we wanted to win the fourth to secure ourselves for alliance selection but, unluckily, on our fourth match our robot malfunctioned – due to a software error – causing the arm to flip the wrong way, and rendering it useless; our drivers did their absolute best to adapt by pushing samples into the zone but it unfortunately cost us the match.

However, we kept our spirits high, and on our fifth and final match, which was also the final qualification match overall, we did spectacularly. We were allianced with an amazing team, The Chiswick Cyborgs, and the match went amazing. Both of us starting strong and staying efficient – by the end we’d beaten the other alliance well and had 99 points overall – the event high score.

After all the qualification matches were over, the rankings were put up and we were placed 4th!

Alliance Selection and Final Matches

Then it was Alliance Selection; Alex went up as our team representative and it was a quick affair. The 1st place team was the first Alliance Captain and – as usual – took the 2nd place team as their Alliance Partner, and the the 3rd place team, Chiswick Cyborgs 2.0, was the second Alliance Captain and took us their Alliance Partner! We had already planned how we were going to respond in Alliance Selection so there wasn’t much need to discuss on the spot and we were thrilled to be going into the final matches.

The final matches were a best of three, and it was very close…

The first match was tense; during alliance selection our teammate, Nathan, has messaged us to put the battery on charge and put a new one in but unfortunately we missed the message and during the match our battery ran out of charge, leaving us stranded and useless. However, thanks to our Alliance Captain it was still a relatively close match. They did their best and valiantly closed the gap, but as they were alone, it wasn’t enough and the other alliance won.

We were ready for the next match; with a fresh battery in place we were ready to go. It was still a tough match but went relatively smoothly and we won. This left the last match to be the decider. During our second match, however, on of the other alliance’s robots had had some issues meaning to resolve those we had a bit of a pause before the final match.

The last match was tense. With both alliances passionate and ready to go, it started smoothly. The autonomous period passed as planned but at the start of the driver controlled was where it started to fall apart, literally. The chain and sprocket driving our intake fell off and, with no other course of action, we resorted to pushing the samples into the net zone. Luckily, thanks to the Chiswick Cyborgs 2.0 being incredible with the specimens, we were still doing well and picking up points – which meant by the end the scores were tight. As the final points were decided, we were all on edge. But when the screen changed to show who’d won… It was us!!

Awards and Closing Ceremony

After that we were sent to pack up and next it was the awards ceremony. Hearing the gracious professionalism nominations were super sweet and fantastic to hear. Additionally, It was amazing seeing all the other teams getting awards – they all massively deserved them, especially our school’s youngest team winning the Judge’s Award, who we were all super proud of.

When it came to the Inspire Award and they announced we’d won it was so incredible and shocking. Going up to collect it was thrilling and we were just in such disbelief, it was a dream come true. Going to photos we were laughing and smiling so hard our faces hurt – we were simply delighted. And in our delight it took quite a bit to get ourselves organised for the photo which led to it taking a little longer to take – this also meant we were still by the photo area as they handed out the Winning Alliance Awards so we collected those after the closing ceremony.

Final Notes

Qualifiers went amazingly and we couldn’t be happier with how it went – everyone was so kind and helpful, which made the day all the more enjoyable for everyone. The experience was so fantastic, being one of the best competitions our seasoned team members have been to and an incredible first time at a FTC competition for our newcomers. It was great to see all the teams – especially with so many new ones. We can’t wait to see everyone who’s qualified at Champs in June – and to see everyone who’s unfortunately not, again next year.