On Mar. 13, Lake Oswego First Tech Challenge robotics teams #8610 ToborTech and #18119 Mostly Operational competed at the Oregon state meet. ToborTech was captain of the winning alliance and placed first out of 45 teams in a close competition. They will be competing at the 2022 First Tech Challenge World Championship. 

Mostly Operational also performed well at state, partnering with ToborTech in a qualification match and helping ToborTech become the first captain. Both teams won the Control Award, with ToborTech placing first while Mostly Operational placed second. This award highlights the intelligence and sophistication of both robots. Mostly Operational highlighted their innovative vision system featuring camera detection. 

During the season, FTC teams build and program a robot with the purpose of employing innovative solutions to a game released by FIRST. Teams also fundraise, reach out to the community, and compete at league meets.

“I think the coolest thing about our team is that we have a strong desire to be student-driven,” junior Sachal Shaikh, member of Mostly Operational, said. “Our members come into our robotics room for multiple days of the week, spending hours upon hours improving our robot, code, etc. as well as working on ways to help and spread STEM to our greater community,” said sophomore Aidan Kwapisz, member of ToborTech. 

“Overarchingly, FTC is all about exploring STEM and pursuing problems with innovative solutions,” said junior Lukas Knipple regarding Mostly Operational’s performance this season, “If we compare ourselves to where we started at the beginning of the year, we can definitely say that we are much more knowledgeable.”

“I’m particularly surprised by our performance this year because of the abundance of rookie members on the team,” said sophomore Aaron Tsai, “These new members have shown to be incredibly fast learners, all of them contributing greatly to our projects. In the future, Mostly Operational and ToborTech both hope to inspire a greater robotics community inside Lake Oswego.