Last night we watched your final robotics tournament of the season. Middle schoolers amongst a sea of high schoolers - half men/half boys. Your team consisted of 5 boys and 1 girl, but only 3 of you were key contributors; a driver, a coder, and you - the spotter (who was also great at coding!) The other two boys when winning; Eric and Will would dance around like little kids when they would win a match. You stayed stoic, would flash me a shape in the form of a W with your thumbs and index fingers or give me a thumbs up for every win. You would calmly smile walk around and shake hands (ew, I was always on standby with hand sanitizer) with your opponents and say, "Good game." I'd watch you in between matches do one of three things; converse with older boys from other teams who seemed to appreciate your friendliness and curiosity, watch other matches to see who your biggest competitors were or who had a strategy that was worthy of changing your bot for, or in the last tournament, which was at your home school, you chatted it up with the girls who came to watch you, but who mostly watched their phones.
I was so proud of the way you had, throughout the season, worked with your team to create a genius unbeatable strategy. How you adapted your bot and even coded the final autonomous that would get your team to state. Autonomous simply means the robot is coded to do a particular action to steal the first goal within 15 seconds, all with the push of a button, the robot will do the action automatically. Each of the 4 teams in the match has 15 seconds to earn 6 points by pulling the goal to your side. Gavin's autonomous would dash out, hook onto a goal, pull it back to his side, turn around and use another grabber to flip the goal over and into a basket. It was genius because with that 6 points they win he is already holding a goal. It worked nearly every time seamlessly and no one could beat the points it scored! Your job as the spotter was to watch the match and report to the driver and your alliance team what to do with the bots to score the most points and to make sure the refs knew it if your opponents were committing illegal actions. The winning strategy was within the 2 minutes remaining of your match your team would dash out grab another goal with their claw, hold it and push it to their ramp, grab another goal and pull it in then drive onto the ramp and balance with their 3 goals while your alliance team grabbed a few more goals to pile on top with a robot that could lift and place the goals! Your bot was so strong it could steal goals or win a massive tug of war without burning out the motor.
Toward the end of the tournament you were the only undefeated team and I heard your name and your teams name, Under Construction, mentioned when I would move around the gym. You would stop by in between rounds and catch me up on the action; who you were worried about beating and what was happening.
On the last match-finals, the one that would take you to state, you had chosen another Montgomery Catholic team that included a high schooler that had been to Worlds three times
already as you your alliance team. It was a wise choice. You circled together before the game and prayed. In the final moments, the buzzer goes off and you have won. You calmly gestured your win, then as tears formed in my eyes with pride, I watched you fight off your own tears of joy. After a few high fives, good games, and hugs with the team, you walked over to us dropped to your knees, bowed your head in exhaustion and cried. It was the sweetest moment I will never forget.
What an experience to have had. And one I hope that when the memory has faded you can look back on this, read my account of it all, and remember what a day it was. We are so proud of you today and always, but man this day was awesome!
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