HOLLIS, NH – The First Robotics Competition Team 1073 from Hollis Brookline High School, also known as the Force Team, is now in its 20th year of competition. In all those years, according to Abby Wallis, lead of the Force’s Business Team, no challenge has been greater than the pandemic.  But now after these last two years, team members are feeling some relief and a sense of getting back closer to normal.

The team is considerably smaller, with 21 members as compared to closer to 40 a few years ago, but it’s a time of “rebounding and rebuilding,” said Jon Jesse, one of the team’s mentors.  “Quite a few members are new to the team, so it’s exciting for them and for us,” he said. The team is growing again.

Wallis said the organization has a corporate-type structure, with two students serving as CEOs leading five groups within the team: Business, Safety, Strategic, Software and Electromechanical, each with a student lead.  The adult mentors provide coaching and motivation for both the technical and non-technical work.

The competitive season for FRC starts in January when the year’s “theme” is disclosed and the robot design/build gets started. That process takes about three months. The 2022 theme is called Rapid React and is a play on airports, with a robotic challenge of dispensing “cargo” (balls) in the “terminal” (the receptacle for the balls).

Competitions begin in February, allowing the team to see what is working with their robot and where they need to make changes. The intensity ramps up pretty quickly. With weekdays full of school as well as robotics, and 3-day weekends full of competitions, there’s little time for anything else.

So far this year, the team has attended one competition in Week “0” and has largely completed their robot, said Wallis. They return to the field this coming weekend for the Northshore Qualifier in Reading, MA. Team 1073 enters the competition in a field of 39 with teams from Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Jesse said that Saturday will include the Qualification Matches & Judging from 11 AM – 7 PM, and Sunday’s schedule will consist of the Playoffs starting at 9 AM and ending with an awards ceremony slated for 5 PM.

You can watch this event on Twitch at twitch.tv/nefirst_blue and twitch.tv/nefirst_orange

The next few weeks will be quite intense and full of more competitions, starting with another qualifying event at WPI next weekend, followed by District Championships.  The FIRST Championship will be held this year in Houston, TX from Tuesday, April 19 to Saturday, April 23, and team plans for attending are already underway.

A fundraising effort has been started to help offset the $26,000 expense of the trip to Houston. Recently Team members manned tables outside of Town and School District Meetings to solicit donations and a GoFundMe page has now been set up.   All donations are greatly appreciated.

Follow the competitions with Team 1073 on their Facebook page, or check out the HB Robotics Boosters Facebook page.