The Lytle Junior High Techno Pirates clawed their way from the basement of the SST/Hwy 90 league championship meet on Saturday, January 13, 2024, to dominate the finals with help from the Lytle High School Robo Pirates and snagged one of the top 10 scores in the State.
The Techno Pirates walked away with the top prize following a disappointing day of competition where the junior high team only won two of five matches. Once they entered the finals in sixth place, the Techno Pirates began a string of amazing wins, which began after choosing Lytle High School as their partner in the finals.
After the smoke cleared, the Techno Pirates took home the top award as captain of the winning alliance, as well as the top design award for programming.
The day began with the junior high team discovering an essential piece of equipment didn’t work. A cell phone used in the robot’s operation was dead and could not be charged. Some members of the team worked on the phone all morning as others asked the 32 teams at the event for an extra phone they could borrow. Meanwhile, the Lytle High School’s team, Robo Pirates, joined the fight to bring the phone back to life and brought the junior high other pieces of technology to replace it. Unfortunately, no solution was found, and the Techno Pirates had to go to their first match of the day with a dead robot. Team driver Isaiah Valdez, who had notched a 104-point win during this past season, had to stare at their unmoving robot with his team as they lost 9 to 14.
As the Meet broke for lunch, the team came up with the idea to draft one of their own smartphones into use. After struggling with configuring the phone to work with the robot’s system for an hour and having no luck, the team cheered when the phone connected, and their robot lurched into life.
The team won their next match, 62-23, with Weston Cook’s teleop program and Elyssa Beazer’s autonomous program doing their job. The robot ended the first match hanging from a part of the field rigging for 20 extra points. They followed that match with another win, 63-45.
The team was breathing easier going into their last two matches, but as their next match began the team’s autonomous program glitched, missing 40 points. A mechanism on the robot designed by Sarai Calvio that shoots a paper airplane for an additional 10 to 30 points also misfired. Isaiah fought back with his driving, but ultimately couldn’t recover and the team lost 40-47.
Losing their second match brought the team’s ranking from first to seventh. Going into their last match before the finals, the Techno Pirates faced the top-ranked team. Once again, the autonomous dropped points and the plane shooter failed. Still, the team came close but lost 63-70.
The team ended the regular matches in sixth place. The top four teams become captains in the finals and choose their team partners. The Techno Pirates’ only hope was to be chosen by one of the top-placing teams. Team President Abril Perez joined the other team representatives to learn their fate. As the team captains chose their finals partners, they picked other team captains, freeing up more slots for the finals. Before she knew it, Abril was being rushed on stage in front of a microphone as she became the fourth and last team captain of the finals. Not expecting to be in the finals, the Techno Pirates had not considered who they would choose to join them. But it didn’t take long to recall the help their friends on the Lytle High School team had given them. With a little help from the audience, Abril remembered the Robo Pirates’ team number and invited their leader on the stage with her.
With the Pirate unification complete, the fourth-place alliance prepared to battle the top teams in the league.
Both Pirate teams were nervous going into the first semifinal match since the Techno Pirates autonomous had failed to make any points during some of the matches and the Robo Pirates had dealt with mechanical failures during the day. But both teams’ robots worked better than they had all season and they won 146 to 86 - a season best for both teams. The Pirate magic worked again next match, shutting out the best two out of three with another win, 108-56.
That meant the Pirates would battle the top teams in the finals. Their first match was a nail-biting loss, 87-109. But the Pirates came back with a big win, 92-44. This meant the third match would determine the top winner of the league championship.
As the third finals match started, it was clear the Pirates were in control. Within 40 seconds, the Pirates led 75-35. At the two-minute mark, the Pirates had 97 points and their opponents had 57. In the last 30 seconds, both teams fired their planes for 20 points each and hung both their robots for an additional 20 points each. Their final score was a whopping 207 points — a league record and one of the top 10 scores statewide for this season.
The Techno Pirates will advance with the high school to Area competition in Round Rock on February 24, 2024.
