PHOTOS COURTESY OF UHS ROBOTICS TEAM
For the second year in a row, the Umatilla Robotics Team is going to the world championships in St. Louis.
Team 4125 – aka Team Confidential – competed this weekend at the Autodesk FIRST Robotics Competition PNW Championships in Portland. The district’s top 64 teams qualified for the regional championship; only 24 moved on to St. Louis.
“When we realized we were going to St. Louis for the second year in a row it was a total surprise,” marketing team member Cameron Sipe said Sunday. “Once we saw 4125 was one of the teams listed we all started cheering, and crying happy tears. We did not think we would go and we are so happy that we are.”
Team Confidential faced ups and downs throughout the entire competition. They would lose a match, then win. Lose, then win. Only the top eight teams were guaranteed a spot in the finals, and those teams selected two other teams to join them in an alliance. Umatilla’s ranking did not earn a place in the finals, and they were not picked for an alliance.
“The PNW Championship was definitely an emotional roller-coaster,” Sipe said. “Our team was not chosen to move on to finals which was especially frustrating. Instead of playing in the finals, we had many teams which we were friends with who we cheered on through finals.”
At the end of the second day, the team received the Entrepreneurship Award, an honor which focused on how the team has established an efficient business structure. This is the first time the team has submitted for the award.
“We had never written a business plan before, so we were really excited to win on our first try at the Regional Championship level as we know we were competing with the best of the best there,” Sipe said. “It earned us 15 points for the overall points system and really helped us make it to St. Louis.”
The team thought it was done after alliance selection, with little chance of moving on to the world championships. Without receiving any points in the finals, their score relied on the totals from the PNW Championships and the two district events they participated in. Technical difficulties extended the wait time for the result, and Sipe said she could hear the cheers of all the qualifying teams when the list of qualifying teams went up on the screen: including Team Confidential.
“It was such a wonderful surprise,” she said. “The most memorable part of the weekend was when we found out we were going to St. Louis.”
With the world championships on the horizon, the team gets little time to relax. They’ll be back in the shop this evening, building a crate to ship the robot across the country, strategizing and fundraising for St. Louis.
On Sunday, two local businesses – Carlson’s Umatilla Drug and the Chuckwagon Café – have already stepped forward with donations.
For more information, regular updates or to donate, visit the team’s website.
More Stories from Northeast Oregon Now:
UHS Robotics Team Ready for Regionals
Record-Setter to Speak at UEC Annual Meeting
