Flintridge Prep Robotics is off to its yearly FTC challenge, Decode. Early in the morning on October 25th, robotics members gathered at LCHS for their first meet. In between sipping coffee and napping on the benches, team members scrambled to make a few final edits to the robots. Following weeks of work and testing, this would be the first time the Wolves would see their robots compete against local teams. Flintridge Prep Robotics has three teams, which are divided up based on prior experience in FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) robotics competitions. The Incognito team is headed by this year’s team captain, Aurix Hong ‘26. The Wolfpack team, composed of members newer to FTC, is headed by Stella Liu ‘28 and Victoria Wang ‘28. Finally, Shortage, the middle school team, is led by Donovan Tan ‘30 and Lilit Eitan ‘30.

The work to prepare for this competition involved collaboration between engineering, programming, and outreach. The challenge for the year was to collect balls off the ground and shoot them into a goal, shooting them in a specific order for more points. This year’s game and scoring system changes prompted lengthy conversations about strategy. Justin Luo ‘27, a varsity programmer, said, “Communication is really important. In previous years, the programmers weren’t able to get the robot until a few days before the meet. It’s great having the robot a few weeks in advance now, and we’ve been able to go a lot further as a result.” This year, the programming teams had dedicated time to adding cameras and sensors, greatly improving robot capacity during the autonomous (no user input) period.

On the engineering side of things, there had been a variety of prototypes. Wolfpack had gone through a number of shooting possibilities, from a rubber band launcher to a flywheel style shooter. They finally decided on a servo-based model, which would flick the balls towards the goal. While there were some difficulties in the first rounds, the team persevered and managed to work around them. When the robot scored its first shot, the entire team erupted in cheers. For varsity, a wooden part broke during their fourth match. But, rather than being deterred, the driver chose to play defense, somehow scoring a penalty that won the match.

Overall, the teams did well at the meet, consistently scoring in the matches and gaining inspiration from other teams Aurix Hong, the overall team captain, noted after the meet, “Placing in the ninety-fifth percentile in the world…I am extremely proud of the team being able to pull this off, and I hope from here on with upgrades and ingenuity we will stay around this rank.” Meet 0 marks a strong start to the competitive season, and with many lessons learned, the Wolves can keep pushing forward, decoding the best strategy for the year.