This was my first year competing in the VEX V5 Robotics Competition, and along with my great teammates, we were able to qualify for the world championship in the PAS-VEX Signature Event in December.
The VEX World Championship was joined by over 800 teams from around the world, representing a scale entirely different from any other competition we have attended.
Pre-Competition Practice
Before the competition, we held practice matches in a conference room we rented and invited teams to join and practice together. We were honored to have both 334C and 334U join the games. They were the best teams in the world, on a completely different level with all teams in Taiwan.
Both 334C and 334U had 2 wings, and they were really good at using them. So we basically couldn't win in a wing battle against them at a long goal. That's why we switched strategy and avoided directly fighting them. We would score mainly in the center goals, and only dump on the long goals at the end. As a result, we were able to win a match against them by a slim margin.
Being able to practice with these top teams really changed me. I realized that they were so much better than us. In the next season, we shouldn't aim only for the champions in Taiwan, but also aim to become a world top team.
Competition + Getting Sick
Unfortunately, I became really sick on the first day of the competition. So I only competed in the afternoon. We won the practice match but lost our first qualification match.
I returned early on the first day and rested in the morning of day 2 until I was called to the convention center because we had a team interview. So despite being pretty sick and having almost no voice, I raced to the convention center and completed the team interview along with my teammates.
For day 2, we won 3 matches and lost 2 in total. Our ranking was around the 30s, which was pretty bad. At night, we fixed the robot to make our intake less likely to overheat.
We had a really easy match schedule on day 3, and along with our fixed robot, we were able to win all 5 matches. We ended up 15th on the qualification ranking. This guaranteed us a seat in the elimination, but we still had to talk to top ranking teams to seek alliance.
Eliminations
Finally, after 8 alliances, 18961B picked us and we accepted. Forming the 9th seed. 18961B was a team from China and they had a pretty nice robot. So we practiced auto together and headed to the elimination rounds.
The first match was the round of 16, we faced 13722V and 3632A. We fought a pretty tough match, but we ultimately won with a 15-point margin.
The quarterfinal round was really challenging because our opponents were the first seed in our division, 11101X and 10222R. Luckily, we were able to take 2 goals and our alliance partner got a park. We ended up winning the quarterfinal by 12 points.
The semifinal round was even harder, we had 81988E and 15442A as our opponents. 81988E had the ability to block both center goals, making it hard for us to win the center. During the match, they blocked the center goal. Unfortunately, our teammate got stuck with them in the center goal, and we lost the match by a good margin.
Conclusions
Although we were stopped in the semifinal, we were able to get the Create Award in our division. We were really glad that we didn't have to go home empty-handed.
Overall, I really enjoyed this year's VEX World Championship. Practicing with 334C and 334U really made me realize how good other teams were. We also did quite well in the tournament as we won 9 out of 12 qualification matches. Forming the 9th seed, we defeated the 8th seed and 1st seed and went into the semifinal round. Finally, the Create Award recognizes our work on the notebook, interview, and robot.
I had a great experience. Unfortunately, I was really sick for most of the competition. I'm sure I would've had a lot more fun if I was 100% healthy.
Finally, I have to thank my teammates who made the team so well-rounded. Thanks to our sister teams for keep practicing with us. Thanks to our coach who taught us a lot throughout the season. Thanks to all of the teams we met during the competition for making VEX Worlds fun. Thanks to the parents who were willing to support us no matter what.
