Before this trip, I barely knew a thing about Robotics. I joined in September mainly to help with manual labor and to learn how to code for engineering, since I thought it would be a cool skill to have if I ever wanted to make a robot that could get me grilled cheeses from the food place on campus.

After I heard that the team had qualified for the world championships at Regionals, the famous Mr. Gangler asked if I’d be willing to come with the team to observe and learn how to code from some of the mentors we’d been recently offered from a team called Code Orange as a result of the grant we’d received from our latest sponsor, Hydraflow.

I’ve never been to the South and my grilled cheese robot is still in the works, so I thought, what the heck? The captains, Katie Fang ‘22 and Emily La ‘22, were so encouraging that I had no other option but to go, especially since they had managed to get us there on a Rookie Wild Card! Only it turns out that our other coder couldn’t go, so I was supposed to be in charge of coding despite the fact that I have never coded in Java. Though this stressed me out, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to attend something like this competition, especially an international one at that! And boy am I glad I did, because this experience has changed my life for the better in ways that I never could have imagined.

From the time leading up to the first day of the competition (the day is mainly used to reconstruct/debug/fix up the robots or meet other teams), I didn’t actually think it would be international. I thought there might be some Canadians, maybe some British people or something. Though there were Canadians and Brits, there were a minimum of 11 other countries present, even on the very first day.

A fun fact about me is that I am a huge geography/world culture nerd: my latest adventure has been learning world flags, which I truly thought was going to be a barely useful skill. Like many times throughout this experience, I was proven wrong! On the first day, people hadn’t set up their booths or anything, so I began identifying people by the flags on their uniforms or hanging on their empty walls. I never thought that I would get to meet people from so many countries in the context of something we’re all passionate about, and yet I met so many wonderful people from almost every continent.

Seeing faces behind the flags that I had studied for so long and knowing that those people found it so validating that I knew what their symbol was made me ecstatic that I’d ever even learned any flags in the first place. You’d be surprised at how kind it can be to just learn the slightest bit about people! I made so many friends from around the world: off the top of my head, I met people from England, Wales, Australia, Turkey, Romania, Lithuania, France, Canada, Morocco, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador, Bangladesh, Palestine, Yemen, Switzerland, Sweden, South Korea, Costa Rica, Japan, and Spain. There could be more that I just don’t immediately remember!

The people involved in this league are some of the most generous and kind collaborators I have ever had the pleasure of meeting and working with. I have truly never seen anything like it. When people don’t have something to do, they walk around and ask others (their competition!) if they can help with anything. What?! I didn’t even know an environment like that was possible, but I wish it was universal because I learned an extraordinary amount about Java and coding for robots from multiple extremely talented people that happened to have some time on their hands! Imagine people just stopping into other people’s booths, fixing their robot, and then going against them 10 minutes later. That’s the norm! You are expected to contribute to a culture of curiosity and collaboration, and the atmosphere of this competition alone was addictive for me. This was my first competition in this league, and yet I felt like I’d known everyone I talked to for years!

The three days I spent in the Houston Convention Center with my teammates and mentors among so many intelligent and kind people have been some of the most enriching moments I’ve experienced from any kind of extracurricular activity I’ve ever participated in. I hope to do everything I can to return next year, and to my fellow Royals, I truly recommend that you consider joining Royal Rebels Engineering (aka Team 8898) for the 2022-2023 school year.

Congrats to the Cheese Poofs from Bellarmine up in the Bay Area for their win as World Champs and to all of those that helped me and my teammates learn from the best, know that we are insurmountably grateful. And to First Robotics, thank you for creating such an unmatchable program that has provided a safe space for so many young minds to explore their interests. I know 8898 will never forget our amazing experience in Houston, and we hope to continue the privilege of competing in First competitions in the future.