Ink and Metal 5773 is a robotics team from American High School in Fremont, CA that represents the school in the FIRST Tech Challenge - a rigorous and fast-paced robotics competition where students design, build, program a robot and compete against...
It's important to also know that 9th grade me rarely used Facebook Messenger, and unfortunately, that was the primary mode of communication for our team. Soooooooo when the message about our first meeting was sent out, I did NOT see it. I only figured it out when a teammate's mom was talking to my mom and asked why I wasn't at the meeting. I felt absolutely terrible. I was SUPER embarrassed and thought the other members would think I wasn't dedicated. I wrote a heartfelt apology in the messenger chat, explaining myself and saying I would never repeat the mistake again. Funnily enough, I soon realized that the team was VERY CHILL and did not care in the slightest about perfect attendance. I guess the lesson here is, I hope you don't beat yourself up for the mistakes you make. Yes, try your best to minimize your mistakes, but sometimes, it's really not as bad as you imagine.
Freshman year went by in a blur. At the time, our team was...not a very competitive team. We met once a week (every Friday afterschool) and worked on our robot. We then grinded for a couple days when there was a competition since nothing would be finished. Not to mention, our outreach efforts were nonexistent. Needless to say, the amount of work we put into our team was clearly reflected in our awards. However, a series of fortunate events (haha book reference) changed the course of our team forever *cue dramatic music.* We hosted a qualifying competition at our high school where much of what I did included arbitrarily inflating the price of donuts (I'm sorry to the kid who paid $5 for a donut) and resetting the field. However, in hosting this competition, we were able to automatically advance to states. From there, we applied for the lottery and suddenly, we were in Houston, participating in Worlds! Bet you didn't see that coming huh? Even though we all went in with low expectations, it was crazy to be in the huge convention center, and I was amazed by the really competitive teams there.
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At Worlds in 9th Grade
After Worlds, something slightly shifted in our team and we began to become a *little* more serious about going back to Houston. Although at that point Houston wasn't an official goal, we did begin to think about ways in which we could get more organized and become a competitive team. And with that new resolution came the start of a crazy journey.
