At Bishop Blanchet, cool students build robots. Team 4682-BraveBots is the name of the robotics team. They spend the whole school year creating a robot to compete in competitions. These competitions are high energy, with several teams competing at once. The object of the competition is simple- Each robot picks up a ball, crosses a moat, and then shoots the ball into a goal.

On the weekend of March 12 and 13, the BraveBots robotics team competed at Glacier Peak high school against 37 other teams with robots of their own. The team had 5 wins, 6 losses, and one tie.

Moderator Dixie Strunk said, “The team had a slow start and gained momentum as the weekend progressed.”

This good showing paved the way for the BraveBots to compete at Mount Vernon high school on the following weekend, March 19 and 20. The drivers of the robot, Lorenzo Tamez, Cormac Brown, and Annie May Foley, did a phenomenal job, scoring 9 wins and 3 losses. The team finished the qualifying matches in third place, which qualified them as the third alliance team.

This meant that the BraveBots were presented the opportunity to compete in the quarter finals of the competition, which was very impressive considering the small size of Team 4682. At this competition, the BraveBots earned the Industrial Design Award. This award is presented to a team that has an efficiently designed robot that addresses the game challenge well.

“This award is the culmination of many hours, days and weeks of hard work by Team 4682-BraveBots.” said Strunk. “The success of the team is due to the fact that they are very resilient and persistent as a team.”

The rarely-recognized team was welcomed with open arms at the assembly on Tuesday, March 22. The BraveBots’ competition was streamed over the projector for the whole school to see, with driver Brown narrating the video.

“I never knew what the robotics team did until now.” said sophomore Gigi Gallaudet. “The competitions look really hard, and it’s impressive that my classmates built that robot.”

Next, the BraveBots took to the roads to demonstrate what it could really do, live. Driver Foley set out balls for the robot to pick up, and a ramp for it to jump over. When she gave her thumbs-up, Brown and Tamez booted the robot up.

“I love robotics because we develop a close knit family to brainstorm and develop a robot in the course of six weeks.” said junior team member Johana Warrick. “Even though it has taken sweat and tears, we are still close and are embracing the future, together, of technology.”