After a week of writing and editing, the journalists proudly present their coverage of the Mississippi FIRST Tech Challenge State Championship. This last Friday our team traveled to the Mississippi FTC State Championship held in Oxford, Mississippi. We were very excited for the big event and a little tired from all the traveling, but it was worth it. We were ready to conquer the day and whatever challenges came next.

On Friday, we arrived at the Duff Center ready for our presentation, robot inspection and to get our team pictures taken with General Mayhem himself. First, we took our photos with Mayhem but we had to take them a second time due to some traffic issues involving team members having problems finding the building and some pesky geese. But they arrived safe and sound just in time to get our photos taken for the second time. Then we rushed to have our robot, ARGO, inspected before the competition. Three of our brave souls tackled this hurdle and came out triumphant. Next was our final test of the day, the team presentation. Our judges had many questions about ARGO and our team alike, which we answered with confidence and precision. The judges asked us a curious question though, do we have a team cheer? So we spent our evening working tirelessly to come up with a team cheer we could use the next day. 

The next morning, we met at Oxford High School to set up our “Dive into the Deep” team booth decorated with our posters of our team and ARGO, 3-D prints of sea creatures, and glowing lights. There was even General Mayhem himself driving a submersible made out of foam. Some of our teammates decided to head to the competition together and chat with the other teams so we would know who would we work best with, and what their strategies were if they were our alliance or our competitor in the next challenge ahead.

Readers, we regret to report that our first match was rough. Our excitement had turned into a panic when we noticed our autonomous was having some troubles. Our poor drivers struggled trying to push or move due to technical difficulties in the programming, but we got that fixed straight away. Then our claw which had worked without fail began to show signs of failing. The mechanism had some difficulties being too loose and having a hard time picking up the samples without dropping them. We struggled but we remained optimistic. When some of our team alumni heard what had happened, they came just in time for the chaos to cheer us on, with extra support and the team continued to push forward and powered through it all.

Despite the challenges, our team was shocked to be able to walk away with a Motivate Award, for our optimism and our desire to share FIRST and our love of STEM with the community. We were able to troubleshoot under pressure, and our teamwork plus the power of perseverance allowed us to go through all of the tough challenges we faced and remain enthusiastic. The whole team learned a lot of valuable skills this season. There’s still a lot to improve upon as always, but we did a pretty good job. We still have the off-season to do so much more so stay tuned. Who knows, maybe next year we’ll go all the way to Worlds.