In May, we were able to reign triumphant in the Rapid React #2 off-season competition held by the Macquarie University’s School of Engineering, even after facing some of Australia’s best teams.
The competition’s purpose was to encourage students to develop applicable STEM skills through competitive robotics. Alliances (a large team composed of 3 individual teams) from the entire nation were able to compete with each other by using robots to score goals and even climb on rungs to acquire points.
We were able to exhibit our problem solving and critical thinking skills as we solved unexpected challenges that arose during the competition; we had faced technical challenges, mechanical challenges and even challenges within the equipment we used. Despite all of this, we adapted to our circumstances and were able to make ends meet.
We played defensively by bumping our opponents’ robots with our own as they were shooting, making their shot miss and rendering their shot null. This ended up as the main factor in our win of the entire competition: in the grand finals of the match, we mitigated the shooting of our opponents, impacting the outcome of the game.