The Los Altos robotics team, Eaglestrike, went to UC Davis to compete in the Sacramento Regional from Thursday, March 21 to Saturday, March 23. The Sacramento Regional is a part of the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology Robotics Competition, which the Eaglestrike team has competed in since 1997. The team was seeded third in the qualifying round, but lost in the first round of elimination.

Together the members of the team identified several key problems that they need to fix before their next tournament.

“We had a lot of struggles with many of the systems on the robot,” Robotics Club member junior Mike Hua said. “The intake systems and the shooter did not work consistently.”

The Eaglestrike robot was made to perform three tasks: climb a metal pyramid, shoot frisbees into goals and collect the frisbees afterwards. Since the team created a robot that was focused on shooting, it was crucial that the shooting system did not malfunction. However, the robot jammed when a frisbee entered the intake apparatus upside-down. The robot was not able to shoot for the rest of the match, stopping the team from gaining points.

“We have to work on improving those systems so that they don’t break down every match,” Mike said.

The team will have its next competition, the Silicon Valley Regional, in two weeks at San Jose State University from Thursday, April 4 to Saturday, April 6. As most teams will have already fixed all of the bugs from the previous tournament, this competition will be harder and more challenging for the Eaglestrike team, and should prove to be an even bigger challenge.