Going into their third year of competitions after hiatus, the PCSST Mecha Lions welcomed new members to the team, as well as some former members who took a break last year. This year, we had a strategist, a lot more builders, two team managers, and also an animator!
Our meetings were focused on getting VEX’s Hero Bot built for their new challenge, High Stakes. The build was spearheaded by lead builder Jorge Velazquez, assisted by Ashly Guillen, Dazary Mirabal, Emir Talas. while Aiden Perez, Elijaaha Offord, Alejandro Sarmiento Theran, and Angie Orizabal set the competition field.
On the other hand, Mirely Guillen worked on understanding rules and regulations, noting them down in the engineering notebook, and our lead strategist Christopher Barahona worked on planning out how we could score points for this year’s challenge. Jordan Barahona and Isaac DeDios focused on possible events we could host to replenish the robotics funds, and Ryson Dennett-Davis used this time to come up with some great animations to support the team.
On December 8th, 2024, the Mecha Lions went to their first tournament in Millburn High School, which hosted 51 teams in total. Aiden, Ryson, and Emir were the main drivers during the event, and Jorge also joined them for a few rounds. Between matches, the team had to make a couple of adjustments to their design, they were running back and forth between the pits and the actual fields. The competitions started off a little rough, and that is where Ashly stepped in to make sure everyone’s spirits were lifted, and no one was stressing out. She went to every single member individually, including the coach, to tell them how hard they worked to get to this tournament, and that everything would be alright. She also made a lot of notes with Mirely to figure out the plan for the next competition.
Special shoutout to Mrs. Carlin, one of our parents, who used to come to the robotics events in the beginning, and joined us again this year! She helped the team set up, paid for their lunch there, and even took lots of photos as she cheered for them from the audience. We were also joined by Christopher, Jordan, Marcos, and Mr. Barahona, who also cheered for the team from the audience for a couple of matches.
While the team was not as proud of their performance, they worked very hard, and got to learn a lot from the first tournament. This was the first tournament early in the season, so there was time to improve, so that the Mecha Lions could come back bigger and better next time.
Coach Alizah G. Memon
