Maryknoll Robotics Team: #2441

            “A representative of Maryknoll called me up this past weekend, telling me that they believed that they would not be prepared for the competition on Monday.”

            “The Robot is not moving!”

            On November 12, 2007, the Maryknoll School Robotics Team entered their first robotics competition, unaware of what lay ahead of them.  Weeks before the competition, the kids who worked on the robot knew nothing about programming or engineering.  After lengthy meetings after school, and weeks of researching, planning, engineering, and programming, it’s show time.  

            The members of the Maryknoll School Robotics Team wake up bright and early, and drive to Kamehameha School to prepare for their first robotics competition.  It is time for the first match… and the robot is not moving!  Apparently someone forgot to charge the batteries.  One failure, causes other teams to look down on our team.

“They are not that good, let’s not pair up with them, or we may lose.” 

Luckily, our partner had a good robot, and therefore our alliance won.  From then on, we learned from our mistake, and improved.  We slowly rose up in ranking, and by our 4^th match, we were 1^st place among the 20+ teams.  In the end, we had to choose a team to create an alliance, and we chose a robot that best complimented ours and in any other sport be a completely unthinkable ally; an Iolani team. Through teamwork and the combination of great minds, we ended up winning the competition.  We received a certificate stating that we are the winners of “Oahu FRC Rookie VEX Robotics Competition Awarded to Maryknoll #2441 Presented on November 12, 2007 at Kamehameha Schools Kapalama. 

            The team is now working towards new goals.  We have earned the NASA grant, which will cover the entrance fee for the Hawai’i FIRST regional competition.  We hope in being able to receive the BAE grant, which will help us to buy our supplies.  We want to show good team spirit, and great sportsmanship behavior towards our peers.  As Kareem Abdul- Jabbar said, “One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team.”