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Readying the robot, Arnav Dharanallur ’26, Ritvij Sharma ’27, Aditya Rayapeddi ’27, and Arjun Parthipan ’28 of team Boomerang talk strategy before a match. Teams at the event pursued a myriad of different strategies, such as focusing on working together with their alliance or prioritizing scoring points on their own.
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Embracing, Aubrey Tipps ’26, Yonnie Yang ’27, and Rupal Jain ’27 of team Slingshot celebrate after winning the Inspire award. The trio became close this year, as they collaborated both on the software subteam and award documentation.
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Ecstatic, Slingshot drivers Souren Uchat ’26 and Arhaan Jafri ’27 and their drive coach Jatin Aggarwal ’26 jump with joy alongside team The Shooting Stars after winning the grand finals, making them the GEMS League winning alliance. Uchat worked with The Shooting Stars before the competition to ensure their robots would work well together, as he knew Slingshot would have the best chance of winning with them as an alliance partner.
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Focused, Jihoon Im ’26 and Scott Sundstrom ’25 of team Slingshot repair a broken component of their robot. The component broke while they tested their robot in between elimination matches, making it critical to get the robot working in time for their next match.
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Aligning their robot, Aarush Srivastava ’26 and Satvik Chawla ’25 score game elements during a match. Chawla led team Tomahawk as its captain this season, after being a member of the software subteam in previous seasons.
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Discussing strategy, Satvik Chawla ’25 of team Tomahawk and Nirwan Pande ’28 and Landon Cai ’28 of team Hunga Munga plan their next move after joining together for alliance selection, with Archit Garg ’26 of The Disruptingly Robocephalic BrainSTEM Robotics Team listening closely. The pair worked together in the MakerSpace in the months leading up to the competition, with Chawla using his experience to advise Pande on his robot.
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With precision, Daniel Li ’29 of team Hunga Munga aligns a game element for his robot to pick it up during a match. Team Hunga Munga’s robot evolved over the course of the season, becoming more efficient in picking up elements from the human player.
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Anxious, Rupal Jain ’27, Arhaan Jafri ’27, and Souren Uchat ’26 of team Slingshot wait for the final score after a match. The trio drove their team’s robot all season, allowing them to build chemistry and work together more effectively.
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Emotional, Rupal Jain ’27 and Yonnie Yang ’27 hug after winning the Inspire award. The pair met in their rookie year during the 2023-2024 season and quickly became close, before moving together to team Slingshot to become part of the software subteam.
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Celebrating, Saanvi Bhosekar ’28, Prahastha Pudi ’27, Aarush Srivastava ’26, and Aidinh Nguyen ’28 of team Tomahawk pick up their controllers after finishing the match. The match was a tough one for team Tomahawk, leaving the members pleasantly surprised when they managed to come out on top.
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24 teams. Five qualification matches. Top-ranked teams select their alliance partners before heading into a double-bracket elimination round. Winner takes all. Crowds screaming, competitors crying, and one final match to decide the champion. On Saturday, Jan. 18, the Robotics For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology (FIRST) Tech Challenge teams competed at the FIRST in Texas Central GEMS League Tournament, the culmination of the past three league meets and their fourth competition of the season. As the final guaranteed competition of the season, teams would have to exhibit excellence, through their robots and more, in order to advance to the next stage.
In addition to an elimination round after qualification matches, this competition also featured the presentation of numerous prestigious awards — another way to advance to the next stage. Teams gave presentations to panels of judges about their respective seasons, followed by rounds of follow-up questions by the judges throughout the day. Teams could earn awards for a variety of accomplishments, such as innovative software, impressive community outreach, or a thoughtful, well-designed robot.
“[Succeeding here] had been every single one of our dreams for the entire year leading up to this very moment,” Team Slingshot Member Rupal Jain ’27 said.
All teams were hugely successful, making history and breaking previous Westwood records. Team Slingshot was crowned champion of the event as the Winning Alliance First Pick, and took home the coveted Inspire award, which allowed them to advance straight to the FIRST in Texas Central Area Championship. To win the Inspire award, a team must qualify to win every other award, as it’s a conglomeration of all aspects of an impressive FTC team. Teams Tomahawk and Hunga Munga won the Control award for impressive software and the Design award for impressive robot design respectively, advancing both teams to the FIRST in Texas Central Semi-Area Championship, where teams will battle to qualify for the Area Championship. Team Boomerang won second place for the Think award, an award that celebrates a team’s use of engineering methodologies and strategic decision making; unfortunately did not qualify to the next stage of competition.
“The Inspire award is basically an award that looks at all the different aspects of your robot and your team,” Slingshot Software Co-Lead Aubrey Tipps ’26 said. “It’s about the design and the thoughtfulness behind your robot but it’s also how you use software and outreach and [spread] FIRST values and [reach] out to the community.”
Team Slingshot was the first team in Westwood Robotics history to win the Inspire award, making it a historical achievement. This superlative is incredibly difficult to win, so much so that the team that wins it is guaranteed to move on to the next stage of competition.
“When we [won the Inspire award], the entire team started jumping up and down and we all celebrated, and [we were] ecstatic and euphoric.” Slingshot Software Co-Lead Jihoon Im ’26 said. “Everyone was celebrating with each other, high-fiving, hugging, and it was really just that feeling [that] we made history.”
However, the Inspire award wasn’t Team Slingshot’s only achievement that day — they won the entire competition, alongside Team The Shooting Stars, the captain of their alliance. Teams Tomahawk and Hunga Munga entered the elimination round together to form an all-Westwood alliance, but were unable to make it to the grand finals. Team Slingshot is the second Westwood team to win the GEMS league, continuing the legacy of Team Tomahawk in the 2023-2024 FTC season, named CENTERSTAGE.
“I was not stressed [about winning],” Im said. “I [believed] in the work that our team put in and I trusted that we’d be able to do it and [the robot] would perform well, and it did.”
After their victory, many members of the team were emotional, with some even crying with joy at their achievement.
“Being part of this team where we’re all so connected and the best of friends, and doing something that you love with the people you love and being successful at it is the best feeling,” Jain said. “That’s the main reason I had a very emotional response.”
Furthermore, as the most experienced Westwood team, members of Team Slingshot have mentored their sister teams throughout the season, becoming invested in their achievements and goals.
“I broke down when our sister team that I mentored a lot, Hunga Munga, won the Design award,” Im said. “That was the breaking point for me, [when] I just thought ‘they did it.’”
Team Slingshot is mainly composed of sophomores and juniors, serving as a second chance for those who were unsatisfied with their rookie year in the robotics program.
“[It was] a whole full-circle moment, because after last year we got on the grind and started learning,” Jain said. “Winning the whole thing felt like we had actually done it and it was unreal.”
With their sights set on the horizon, the Westwood Robotics FTC teams are hopeful that they will succeed in all their upcoming future endeavors, and their passion has only grown with this experience.
“I don’t think I expected to have this deep of a passion for [robotics],” Tipps said. “I’ve always wanted to be part of a team, and this is kind of the culmination of that for me — all of us putting [in] this work together and then getting to advance with these people that I love, I didn’t expect to love it this much and have such deep connections with all these people.”
