This past weekend the Liberty High School Robotics Team successfully competed in the US Open Nationals Robotics Competition, held in Council Bluff, Iowa. The team represented a new shining star in the competition by making it to the quarter-finals tournament, its first year there. We were part of the 14th alliance of the sixteen best teams. Despite some severe set-backs such as team mates with dead batteries, no motor control, and one which never showed up, the team performed admirably. We won every autonomous portion of the match, thanks to the flawless programming of Raj Kundu. In our last match, even without a team mate, our driver, Felix Quintana exhibited superior driving skills in keeping up with the two-team opposition, until the last thirty seconds of the match. His tactics were successful because of the expert real-time coaching provided by Elizabeth Lee, and assistant Gian Carlo Seixas. Our robot never once malfunctioned, thanks to the vigilance of the team’s chief builder Alex Smith and his skillful assistant and repairman, Andrew Zmijewski. Together, they performed routine maintenance, battery change, and inspections of the robot after every match. As you can see, they truly functioned as a professional team. Congratulations to team 9502A!
