PHOTO BY JENNIFER COLTON
Match after match, the Umatilla robotics team dominated the competition last weekend at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, Wash.
At the end, Team “Confidential” took first place in the Eastern Washington University FIRST Robotics Competition District Qualifier.
“It went amazing,” Umatilla High School student Stephanie Klucas said. “I was shocked. It almost felt like a dream. Everything just went so well.”
During each match, only four people from each team take the field. For Umatilla, those four were primary driver Antonio Moreno, shooter Stephanie Klucas, spotter Caden Sipe and mentor Zach Dolman.
While three of the four have been involved with Umatilla’s robotics program since its inception, the experience was a first for Moreno, a sophomore. Moreno was introduced to the program through his sister, Anabel.
“It seemed cool, so I joined this year,” he said.
But Moreno didn’t just join: he quickly became the team’s go-to driver. In week five, students were given the chance to test drive the robot, and Sipe said he knew the team had a shot at winning a competition when he saw Moreno at the controls.
“Antonio took the controls and just zoned out for a second and became one with the robot,” Sipe said. “I knew right then we had a chance at winning. He is amazing, and he doesn’t get enough credit for that.”
At the competition, Moreno panicked at first, letting nerves get the best of him.
“As soon as I got into the rhythm, I felt pretty good about it,” he said. “When we had won eight and only lost one qualifying match, I started to realize we were going to go really good.”
PHOTO COURTESY OF UHS
In the semifinals, the alliance came out on top and set a tournament record for most points: 250-114. At the end of the weekend, Umatilla had won 16 matches and lost three, taking home first place.
Umatilla took home the Engineering Inspiration Award, which is awarded not to the team, but to the entire community for advancing respect and appreciation for engineering. Umatilla’s STEM Academy brings engineering, robotics and related fields to students kindergarten through high school, and local residents and sponsors stepped up to help the robotics team make it to the FIRST World Championships in St. Louis last year. Knowing they had a community behind them made a difference for the Umatilla students, who said they felt they should give something back to the community for supporting them.
“We weren’t winning for ourselves,” Emily Stonecypher said. “We had other people to win for.”
Although they made it to the FIRST World Championships last year, Umatilla’s experience at the Eastern Washington University tournament was very different this year. Last year, they placed 26th out of 30 teams.
The win moves the team into range to compete at the Autodesk Pacific Northwest FRC Championship, April 9-12.
Sixty-four teams from the Pacific Northwest Region will compete at the regional championship in Portland. Teams are selected based on a point system of matches won and awards received from district competitions. Each team’s score is counted based on up to two district tournaments.
After Saturday’s competition, Umatilla is ranked ninth in the region – and most teams in the top 10 have already competed in two competitions. Umatilla will add points in Ellensburg, March 27-29, to their total.
The PNW Region has more than 150 FRC teams registered this season, and Ellensburg is one of five district qualifiers still scheduled before the regional competition.
“If we perform as well as we did (at EWU), we’ll be in the top five,” Stonecypher said.
For the next week, the Umatilla students will fine tune their robot and look into their competition before heading to Ellensburg. They’ll also work to keep the community informed through their team website and Facebook page.
“We have a lot of ideas for improvement,” Anabel Moreno said. “We know where our weaknesses are, and we’re going to work on eliminating those weaknesses.”
After Ellensburg, the team should know if they qualify for the Portland Autodesk Regional. Scores in the regional will determine if Umatilla can move on to the Worlds competition for the second year in a row.
“Our robot’s good, but we have some things we need to fix, then we go to Ellensburg and do the same thing again,” Klucas said. “We’re going to go to Ellensburg, and we’re going to win. Then to Worlds.”
