The weekend of March 14th, Highlander Robotics traveled to San Francisco with their new robot “Wisp” for the FIRST Robotics Competition’s San Francisco District Event at St. Ignatius College Preparatory. There they won the FIRST Impact Award and qualified for the NorCal District Championship in April.
The FIRST Robotics Competition announces a new game each January, played by two alliances of three robots in an arena roughly the size of a basketball court. Roughly 3500 teams of 9th to 12th graders construct an entirely new robot each season and competitions begin 8 weeks after kickoff. In this year’s game called Rebuilt, robots shoot 6-inch foam balls into an 8 foot high funnel while crossing field obstacles and climb rungs of a ladder before time runs out.
At their first competition of the season, the Highlanders finished qualification rounds ranked 5th of 38 teams with an 8-4 record. During alliance selection they were chosen as the second pick of the draft by Alliance 2, captained by Aragon Robotics Team from San Mateo. In the opening round of the double-elimination playoffs they defeated Alliance 7 – Deus Ex Machina, the SOTA Cyberdragons, and Bay Robotics – 198-72. In the second round they fell to the third-seeded OtterBots alliance 99–194 and dropped to the lower bracket, where they were eliminated in Round 4 by the 4th seed Alliance 92-144 and finished 4th overall.
In the awards ceremony the Highlanders were awarded FIRST’s most prestigious award, the Impact Award, which honors the team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate and embodies the mission of FIRST. Judges cited the opening of a multi-level robotics practice space partnership with Piedmont Makers, the adoption of the scouting software that the Highlanders publish each year by over 800 teams, and the team’s open source software training curriculum as reasons they were deserving of the award.
The Highlanders robot ‘Wisp’ (8033) shoots a barrage of balls at the Hub alongside alliance partner 4973. 
Pit member Sattvik Sapuram works to maintain Wisp between rounds. 
Drive team members (left to right) Sam Charlson, Mason Kim, Cassie Colby, and Max Seiden prepare strategy before their match.
The Highlanders will compete next at the in Glendale March 27th–29th before heading to the NorCal District Championship at the Cow Palace in San Francisco April 9th–12th, where the top 60 teams in the region will vie for berths at the World Championship in Houston.
Wisp was operated by driver Max Seiden and operator Mason Kim, and supported by drive coach Cassie Colby and human player Sam Charlson.
Highlander Robotics was founded in 2019 by brothers Henry and Charlie Lambert and is composed of 62 students from 12 high schools around the area. They work from the Mary G Ross Engineering Lab at Piedmont High School. For more information visit the team on the web at frc8033.com.
Photos courtesy of Kevin Clark