We’re Back for Fall Competition 2021!
Written by PiE Team on Nov 3, 2021
In the midst of a storm raging through the East Bay, Pioneers in Engineering worried about the inevitable rain that would likely throw a wrench into Fall Competition, but the clouds luckily relented in preparation for a wonderful Saturday event. High school teams from all around the Bay Area flocked to Berkeley to compete against each other in a battle for the fastest time around a difficult obstacle course. Robots had to find their way through a maze littered with tasks worthy of facing teams’ clever contraptions, including control, manipulation, and logic challenges.
Throughout the day, our software teams met many bugs and challenges (including ones never faced before!), but persevered and were able to enable teams to compete successfully. Skyline (Team 10) and John Henry (Team 42) came in a close second place, with blistering times of 137 and 138 seconds, but their alliance conceded 90 seconds in penalties, allowing Albany High School (Team 1) and Arroyo High School (Team 31) to edge out the victory by only 18 seconds, despite Albany and Arroyo having slower individual runs of 170 and 147 seconds, respectively.
When robots weren’t flying around the track, we hosted workshops pertaining to hardware, strategy, coding, and college life where aspiring high schoolers learned various valuable skills from UC Berkeley students. Many students even indicated the workshops and panel were their favorite part of the competition!
It was our first in-person competition in a long time, and many staff members knowledgeable of competitions have graduated, so the day was quite hectic. Many hiccups greeted us, but we were nevertheless able to host a great day of robotics matches. We have many points from Fall Competition to learn from, and look forward to an even better Spring Comp!
Thanks and congratulations to all the schools that participated!
Albany High School
El Cerrito High School
Pinole Valley High School
Hercules High School
Skyline High School
Arroyo High School
John Henry High School
ACLC
Hayward High School
