Five years ago there was no robotics team in Piedmont, this year was the team’s third time attending the FIRST World Championship.
Over the week of April 15, FIRST Robotics Challenge (FRC) Team 8033, or Highlander Robotics, competed at the 2024 FIRST World Championship in Houston, Texas.
Vice Captain and junior Vaughn Khouri said the team placed second out of 75 teams during the qualification rounds of the Milstein Division. By the end of Worlds, Khouri said Highlander Robotics finished as a division finalist placing them within the top 32 teams out of the 600 teams at the competition.
“We were all incredibly proud to make it to division finals, especially being the Alliance captain [which is] something that we’ve never done before,” Khouri said.
At Worlds, during the final rounds the top seeded teams get to pick two other teams they would like to work with in an alliance. As Highlander Robotics was seeded second in their division, they were able to pick the two teams they would work with. This made them an alliance captain, something they weren’t seeded high enough to be at previous Worlds the team had attended.
“The whole team is very satisfied with what we achieved,” said Mechanical Lead and junior Ayaan Jajodia. “We see that we’re making pretty big improvements and the team is only four or five years old and we’re already almost at the absolute top of [competition].”
Mechanical Lead and senior Beck Peterson said this was the team’s third year at the Worlds competition, the previous two times being in 2022 and 2023. Peterson said it was impressive to watch the team go from attending their first year of Worlds, to being division finalists this year.
“It’s crazy to see how much the team has improved in [the past three years],” Peterson said.
Going into next year’s season, Jajodia said he hopes to continue the improvements on the team from this year, carrying them into the building season and hopefully winning a regional competition. Khouri said he seconded some of Jajodia’s hopes.
“I think we’re gonna have a really good shot at doing well [next season],” Khouri said. “I feel really confident that we’ll build a robot that is going to compete at a super high level.”
Registration for the Highlander Robotics 24-25 season is currently open on the Piedmont Makers website for those interested in joining.
