FIRST Robotics Tech Valley Regional
March 29, 2025
My oldest kid was on Chatham’s first robotics team nine years ago. We went to the first competition not knowing anything about it, kind of expecting to watch tiny robots roam around a small room. Much to our shock, the robots were the size of a piece of furniture and there were dozens of teams from around the world and thousands in attendance. My youngest also joined the team and so we went to many of these competitions and dealt with a fair amount of frustration. Chatham’s team was miniscule compared to the others and didn’t have the resources of the much bigger schools. Our robot would struggle to stay in one piece when literally NASA backed robots buzzed around them.
So I really cannot over state my shock at what happened Saturday. At the end of qualifying rounds, Chatham’s Artemis Robotics was ranked second out of a field of 56 teams. The matches are two alliances of three teams each battling to complete a series of tasks. During qualifying, the alliances are essentially randomly chosen but in the playoff teams are drafted with first choice going to the best team. Artemis had only previously been selected to a playoff alliance once before but this time they were the first choice of the number one team. Their alliance crushed it in the first round but lost narrowly in the second round, getting them bumped to the “loser” bracket. Essentially the long way around to the finals. And they rampaged straight through to the final. It was a best of three match and their alliance only needed two to seal the deal.
Chatham should be immensely proud of these students who overcame insane odds to emerge winners. And in doing so, they’ve qualified to go the FIRST Robotics World Championship in Houston on April 16th. They’re going to need a lot of help to pull this off. If you can help please send a check payable to CHS Robotics to Chatham High School. I will be forever grateful for your assistance.
Here are a few shots from the competition. You can find all of the shots here.
