Ventura County Blog
Hello everyone! This week a ton of AZTECHs are here to update you on this past week at the Ventura County Regional.
Stands, Scouting & Camaraderie
Though we didn't make it to a picking position in playoffs, our scouters played a huge role in aiding our drive team in and outside of matches. They all worked hard to learn and adapt to our new scouting app, Lovat, and gave our drive team the ability to anticipate and correctly thwart our opponents in our matches.
Our members loved the spirit of Coopertition while attending the regional. One of the hallmarks of FIRST, Coopertition is all about being kind and friendly to other teams, even though fiercely competing with them. Engaging in this aspect of FIRST makes regionals so much fun, and at Ventura, we had a blast with other teams! Whether it was collecting shirt-fulls of pins from the pits of other teams, or dancing with Team Rembrandts (from the Netherlands) during load in, and wearing our own team’s merch with pride, our members had a great time embodying the spirit of Coopertition.
Impact Presentation!
This year is the second time our team has submitted the Impact Award. It included an essay, executive summaries, and a video, as well as a presentation that was delivered at the competition. Our team has focused on three main groups this year for outreach, youth in STEM, women in STEM, and LGBTQ in STEM and has hosted 24 events just this year. In our 7 minute speech, we were able to share all about these events and the impact our team has been able to have on our community! We look forward to once again giving this presentation at AZ East.
POV: Pits & Judge Whisperers
The Pit Crew was super busy this regional! The main challenges we faced were with the Coral Corral and the Elevator. Below are some of the major incidents.
The 3D printed body of the coral corral kept shattering due to collisions with field elements.
During a qualification match, a coral fell into Teca which caused two of the belts driving the elevator to snap.
The magnet of the elevator encoder became loose and caused errors when zeroing the elevator.
All of these problems were fixed in no time, thanks to Pit Crew's teamwork and perseverance. Although we faced many technical problems, Teca was able to compete in all qualification matches. From this experience, the AZTECHs are now extra prepared and ready to succeed at the upcoming AZ East regional!
Additionally, we implemented a new role to our pit crew–the Judge Whisperer! These are members well versed in the club’s history, processes, and designs, who then engage with judges who pass by. This is extremely important, as these judges determine who wins awards, which can help teams get to the World Championship.
POV: Drive Team
The press of a button could destroy our robot–that’s what it means to be on the drive team. It means when it breaks, we do our best to win matches with what we have. The Drive Team faced many challenges throughout all of our practice matches and qualifying matches consisting of our elevator breaking, our coral corral intake breaking twice, and FMS connection issues. We adapted and solved these challenges with the help of our amazing pit crew, fixing Teca so she was match ready. When they were unable to make Teca fully operational, Drive Team worked around these issues by changing our strategy with our alliance partners by either switching to defense or scoring L1 when our elevator wasn’t operational. All of the Drive Team worked diligently to adapt to the countless challenges we faced, and now we can move on to AZ East and use the new information we learned from Ventura to succeed.
Rising All-Star
Our team received the Rising All Star Award this regional! As we sat in the stands listening to awards being presented, our entire team heard the presenter on the field announce the following:
“The Rising All Star Award celebrates the team that has persisted through challenges, despite the difficulties of being young. This could be the result of being a new team, or a team with recent turnover in membership.
Rising above the challenges, these warriors tried something new. Organizational structure made all the difference, with 2 strong presidents and 24 outreach events, this desert team will show us the way.
Congratulations Team 6479!”
We were all elated as we went down the stands and onto the field to receive our award, fist bumping & high fiving all the judges as we walked through the field. This award was incredibly meaningful to us as a team and a recognition of all the hard work we put into this season. From completely reorganizing our teams structure, to developing an extensive curriculum to help further our members, to quadrupling our yearly average of outreach events and making our second ever submission for the Impact award, to making leaps and bounds to the way we stay organized and on-schedule within season, this award was a reflection of how far we have come as a team this season. It marks a turning point in our team's history and shows our commitment to strengthening all the members of our team, having an impact in our community, and passing down the institutional knowledge that we have learned over the years to make STEM accessible and approachable to all. This award was incredibly well deserved, and we can’t be more proud.
Student Testimonials
Next up, we have some testimonials for students who attended their very first regional this past weekend!
Simon - “The Ventura Regional will forever be one of my favorite memories. I really loved being able to experience the competitions and the amazing interactions between us and other teams. Being a part of this trip allowed me to grow significantly closer to the team as a whole. Being on pit crew was also really meaningful to me because I got to show the incredible amount that I had learned from when I joined last year to now, which I had never expected.”
Derek - “Ventura County regional was fun.”
Logan - "It is my first season on the team, and being able to directly support my teammates and Teca in the competition made all the work feel worthwhile. Additionally, being able to meet other teams like the Rembrandts and Optix was great.”
Lucas E - “It was fun being able to work on Teca in a fast paced environment. I really felt like we all got to do a lot of team bonding and it was cool to see us come back with the Rising All-Star award.”
Tymothy - “Considering my inexperience, going to this regional changed a lot for me. I learnt so much about FRC and REEFSCAPE, as well as other teams from pit scouting. I think regionals are a major step into the competitive aspect than off-season events, and I am excited to participate in these types of events.”
Justin - “I loved my experience with Ventura seeing the crazy and innovative designs that other teams have done. I loved seeing our robots in action and understanding that there will be problems; that's why we prepare and work diligently to make sure we succeed. I loved seeing the gracious professionalism from all the teams and I'm just happy for being a part of it.”
Delia - “I am very grateful for my experience at the Ventura County Regional Competition. I was able to learn a lot about how our team functions in high stress environments, and how to bring the best out of bad situations. I also learned so much more about FIRST and how much love, inclusivity, and passion is in the teams that FIRST has. I also made some core memories with lovely people, from scouting in the stands to messing around in the hotel. Overall, this has been a really cool learning experience that has helped me gain some really great insights!”
Next week we will be competing at AZ East hosted at Corona del Sol High School. We hope to see you all there!
