Robots roar and race across the field, crashing into the barriers, field elements, and other robots. The stands are filled with hundreds of spectators, each team chanting to support their own robot and drown out rival teams.
Breaking records and securing an unprecedented advance to the FRC Texas State Championship, from April 2 to April 5, Robotics FRC Team Orange Dynamite competed at the FIRST in Texas Week Three competition in Victoria, Texas from March 14 to 15. The team was hugely successful, performing the best they had at competition in team history, and hope to continue this momentum at the state level.
For the 2025 season, named REEFSCAPE, teams were tasked to build a robot that could score PVC pipes — called coral — on large coral reef-like structures called reefs. The game consisted of other tasks as well, such as removing large bouncy balls from the reef before scoring coral, and hanging on cages in the final seconds of the match. For the Victoria competition, teams competed in 12 qualification matches before rankings were finalized. After this, alliance selection took place, where the top-ranked teams picked two other robots to compete with them in eliminations.
“It was definitely the best event we’ve ever had in [our team’s] history,” FRC Director and Orange Dynamite Team Captain Anaya Zia ’25 said. “We [finished qualification matches] rank three, [we were the] alliance captain of two, and won the Engineering Inspiration award.”
The turnaround for this competition was incredibly short, with only two weeks between the team’s last competition in Waco and this one. Because Team Orange Dynamite does not have adequate space on campus for a proper FRC field, they frequently travel to other schools where fellow FRC teams with full fields set up are willing to let them practice there.
“Overall we had a huge focus on taking our robot to places where we knew we could get practice [and] have maximum time to actually implement any changes we needed to make,” Zia said. “We went to Vandegrift, McNeil, and LASA and made sure that all the mechanisms were functioning as they should.”
In order to perform so well, Team Orange Dynamite focused on specific goals for their robot, and designed a robot to have as few points of failure as possible. They focused on a simple, effective, well-built robot that was easily maintainable. In particular, the robot featured only one degree of freedom. This meant the robot had a single joint with independent movement, in this case the robot’s two-stage elevator.
“[Part of why we did so well is] the factors of simplicity that we had, only sticking to one [degree of freedom],” Zia said. “This means that [the robot is] less likely to break, [and] this is the first time our team has not had any mechanical issues at [a] competition so it definitely helped with performance.”
Zia has been on Team Orange Dynamite for three years and FRC Director for two, making this last year incredibly important to her.
“[Doing so well] meant everything [to me],” Zia said. “At Waco and our last couple of competitions I would’ve liked to compete [at this level], and it felt really different being able to be one of the best teams there — that usually never happens for us.”
Near the end of qualification matches, lower-ranked teams often market their teams and robots to the higher-ranked teams that are certain to be alliance captains during elimination matches, to raise their own chances of getting picked. As a top team, Orange Dynamite was on the receiving end of these pitches, which was a new experience for many on the drive team.
“It’s interesting having people walk up to you and sell their robot to you versus you doing the opposite,” Zia said. “I think that we turned over a pretty good leaf for the next couple of years [and] it means a lot to me as a senior.”
With the state level competition quickly approaching, Orange Dynamite’s chance to make it to the world championship draws closer. This season the team has the highest chance of qualifying compared to the past few years, leaving many optimistic yet nervous.
“I think we’ll do pretty good at states, [and] I think there’s a 50/50 chance [we make worlds],” Zia said. “It really depends, we can’t do mediocre, we have to do pretty good, but I think if we perform the way we did at Victoria, we have a pretty good shot at making it.”
