Dr. Kessner and Mr. Witman
Marlbots advance to World Championships in Houston!
The Marlbots competed in the FTC LA Regional Championship this Saturday, 3/9 at Monrovia High School. This tournament brought together the top 48 teams from the greater LA region for a chance to qualify for the World Championship in Houston. The event was extremely competitive with only 7 of the 48 teams advancing.
The Marlbots advanced to the World Championships in Houston by winning the 1st place Inspire Award!
Photos: Saturday at the Tournament
Photos: Friday Preparation
Scores
The Marlbots: Emma ‘19 (Captain), Arien ‘19, Catherine ‘21, Charlotte ‘22, Emma ‘21, Charlie ‘22, Kendall ‘19, Leah ‘22, Nina ‘22, Roxy ‘19, Shine ‘22, Sidney ‘21, Jordan ‘22, Sofia ‘21, Sydney ‘19
Tournament summary from Mr. Witman, coach of the Marlbots:
The Marlbots opened with a very strong robot performance in the first round of the day, and were consistently among the highest point scorers in every round. They had some tough matchups in qualifying rounds, and due to circumstances beyond their control they ended with a 3/5 record in qualifying rounds and seeded 8th of 24. They were the first pick of the second seed during alliance selection. The Marlbots tried to carry their alliance out of the semi-finals, but were eventually eliminated by the 3rd seeded alliance in the third round of a best of three series.
At this point, the large Marlborough contingent in the audience was feeling disappointed but extremely proud of the students and their impressive performance. There was a sense that the Marlbots had one of the best robots and by circumstance narrowly missed winning the robot portion of the tournament outright. So of course, when the Inspire Award was finally announced at the end of a long awards ceremony, there was a large outpouring of emotion.
Inspire Award description:
This judged award is given to the team that embodied the ‘challenge’ of the
FIRST Tech Challenge program. The team that receives this award is a strong
ambassador for FIRST programs and a role model FIRST team. This team is a top
contender for many other judged awards and is a gracious competitor. The
Inspire Award winner is an inspiration to other teams, acting with Gracious
Professionalism® both on and off the playing field. This team shares their
experiences, enthusiasm and knowledge with other teams, sponsors, their
community, and the Judges. Working as a unit, this team will have showed
success in performing the task of designing and building a robot.