By JT Koch / Spill Editor
NPHS robotics team 99904W will compete at the VEX Robotics World Championship in St. Louis, Missouri April 21-30. It qualified during the Indiana state competition held in Lucas Oil Stadium. While 99904W became state finalists, their teammates were not as fortunate , as they were eliminated earlier on and only qualified for the championship after the state competition.
Due to 99904E’s elimination, the NPHS teams took a massive morale hit. The program’s freshman team had already missed qualifying for state and the junior team was unlikely to qualify for the world championship.
“I was upset that our autonomous coding for the skills wasn’t working. I was upset because we put a lot of time and effort into making it consistent at the school and at our home field. It was just upsetting that it didn’t work,” senior Joseph Wilson (E-Team) said.
99904E mainly planned to qualify through skills, a scored round with the team’s robot to score as many points as they can alone; however, they missed their mark and were forced to try to qualify during the elimination bracket.
“We had performed well in the early competition and we knew we were going to eliminations,” Wilson said.
Even more unfortunately, the NPHS teams were lined up in a way that they would have to compete against each other during the quarterfinals. The pairing guaranteed that one of the NPHS teams wouldn’t move on in the competition and would also lose the ability to qualify for the world championship. However, 99904E lost in the round of 16, long before it could compete against their friends.
“My motivation certainly has dropped. Our sister team had a good season and I thought they would certainly qualify. Watching their skills runs not hit and us getting paired against each other in quarterfinals, it meant only one of us could qualify and it sucked,” senior Carson Eyerman (W-team)said.
After 99904E’s loss, their sister team 99904W was determined to qualify for the world championship. Without their teammates in the way, 99904W was able to compete and not have to worry about eliminating their friends and teammates.
“It was very unfortunate but we were incredibly ecstatic after our quarterfinals match. We also knew after we won our quarterfinals match because Bananas (99904E) missed, we had to win it for them. It would be incredibly sad if we were going to have to play each other, they get knocked out and we don’t even win our quarterfinals match to keep in it,” senior Charlie May (W-team) said.
Throughout elimination rounds, Eyerman drove for the team, keeping them in the competition and accelerating them to the final match. Under pressure, Eyerman’s performance was exactly what the team needed to qualify for worlds.
“I was definitely ‘locked in.’ The pressure was on for sure and I knew I needed to perform if we wanted to qualify. We ended up going all the way to state finals, where we were knocked out up there. It is definitely the best I’ve ever driven, and that helped carry us all the way to where we ended up,” Eyerman said.
“If Carson drives like he did in eliminations, at worlds, there’s no reason we don’t win our division and make a world’s run. We were by far the best drivers in all of Indiana that day,” May said.
Unfortunately, 99904W lost in the final match and did not win the state competition. While they missed the mark on the competition, they qualified and made up for their teammates’ unexpected loss.
While chances were slim, 99904E still had one last way to qualify for worlds. Since the NPHS robotics program is full of high performing teams in Indiana, 99904E stood a chance of making the waitlist. Since some teams can’t always accept their world invite due to financial or logistical reasons VEX will get other high performing teams that didn’t qualify and have them compete instead. 99904E received news about their invite and they were excited.
“(Coach Tim) Tarpley (one of the Robotics coaches) got the email that we got the spot, so he called my dad and I overheard it and I was just surprised. We were like ‘wait what, we got in?’ My dad and I were both so surprised. I called the team and I told them that we got in and we were all just so surprised,” Wilson said.
After the good news, the teams are both preparing for the Worlds competition in St. Louis. Since this is the seniors’ last year, they are grateful that they will get to compete alongside their friends.
“Push back (the current Vex robotics game) is definitely a decent game to go out on as my final year. I’m really going to miss the community. Everybody in the community is very close. We’re all friends because at some level. You always want to help everybody else out because they could be who you play but they could also be your teammate. In general it’s better to play better opponents so having everybody in the community be good helps with that,” May said.
