On Saturday, March 21, 60 students were in front of the school at 4 am. It wasn’t for school, but something equally time-consuming, robotics. The KoiBots were about to make the 4-hour drive down to Chesapeake for their second qualifying event. The team had previously gone to the FCH District Alexandria, VA Event (VAALE), and were hoping this second event would qualify them to go to districts. FCH District Chesapeake, VA Event (VACHE) was held at Hickory High School, which is home to team #2890, The Hawk Collective. It was a travel competition, which meant students would be staying the weekend down there in a hotel.
On Day 1, the team started strong, playing a total of 8 matches and winning 6 of them. The most notable match was Quals 8, where Red Alliance (#122 NASA Knights, #404 ART Not Found, and #8230 KoiBots) won against Blue Alliance (#2998 VikingBots, #4286 Imperial Robotics, and #1895 Lambda Corps), 254 to 60. They ended the day in 4th place with high hopes.
The second day, students woke up bright and early to eat a breakfast of rubbery eggs and waffles. After lugging all their stuff to the bus and settling in, the team was ready to continue. After a 20-minute wait for a lost student, the bus finally left for the high school. The KoiBots had 4 more matches that day, and unfortunately lost all of them. However, the team was still picked by Alliance 5 with two other teams, #1895 Lambda Corps and #11415 Storm Surge.
After two matches, they were then eliminated in Playoffs 5, against Red Alliance (#422 The Mech Tech Dragons, #2998 VikingBots, and #122 NASA Knights). They ended up in 17th place, having won 6 matches, lost 8 matches, and 0 ties. The KoiBots won the Imagery Award in honor of Jack Kamen, making it their 5th consecutive year of winning.
Unfortunately, while the team was not qualified to go to districts, they had a fun and exciting time on what, for many of the students, was their first travel competition. The team saved around $15,000 from not going to districts which will be saved for next year. Since the team is not in need of funds, but still wanted to continue the tradition of having a fundraiser every season they decided on a smaller scale spring fundraiser. This fundraiser will be for the teams oldest clients who’ve supported the team for a long time.
