Ever since freshman year, robotics has been one of the biggest parts of my life1. Our team, the Iron Hawks, competes in the FIRST Tech Challenge, and I have been on the build team for three years. This year I became the build lead, which meant a lot more responsibility than I expected.
Our biggest challenge came at the regional qualifier in February. We had spent almost four months designing a robot with a linear slide arm that could lift the scoring pieces to the highest basket. In practice it worked really well. We were consistently scoring more than most teams we had seen online2 and we felt very confident going in.
During our second qualification match, the arm got caught on another team's robot and one of the slide rails bent. When we got the robot back to the pit, the arm couldn't extend more than halfway. We had about forty minutes before our next match and no spare rail, because we had used our spare earlier in the season and never ordered another one, which was my job3.
At first everybody kind of panicked.4 Some people wanted to just play defense for the rest of the day, and one of our seniors was really upset and said we never should have designed such a complicated arm. I felt terrible because I knew the missing rail was my fault. But I knew that as the leader I had to stay calm and come up with a plan.5
I split the team into groups. One group went around the pits asking other teams if they had any extra slide rails. Another group helped me take the arm apart so we could see if the rail could be bent back. A team from a school about an hour away let us borrow their rail, but it was a different length, so we had to cut it down with a hacksaw from our toolbox and drill new holes. My friend Marcus held the rail steady while I drilled because my hands were shaking.6 We finished with four minutes to spare and the arm worked, mostly7. We didn't win the qualifier but we made it to the semifinals, which was the farthest our team had ever gone.
This experience taught me a lot about leadership and teamwork.8 I learned that a leader has to stay calm under pressure even when they are stressed inside. I also learned that it is important to take responsibility for your mistakes instead of blaming others. After the competition I made a spreadsheet of every spare part we need and assigned someone to check it every month, so this will not happen again9.
Most importantly, I learned that no one can do everything alone. If the other team had not lent us their rail, and if my teammates had not worked so hard, we never would have been able to compete. Now whenever I see a team in trouble at a competition, I am the first one to offer our spare parts, because I know what it feels like.10
In college I plan to major in mechanical engineering, and I know there will be many more challenges like this one. I am confident that the lessons I learned from robotics, staying calm, taking responsibility, and working together, will help me succeed no matter what problems I face11.