The final sounds of team Orange Dynamite’s season echo throughout the George R. Brown Convention center at the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) in Texas District Championship in Houston, Texas. Thousands of students desperately chant from the stands as robots frantically crash on the field, driving to stay alive and make it to the World Championship. From Thursday, April 3 to Saturday, April 5, the Robotics FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) Team Orange Dynamite competed with teams across the state. While the team was unable to qualify for the World Championship, the event marked a milestone in their history, as they both made it to the elimination round and won an award at the state championship for the first time.

“I think we had some pretty drastic improvements compared to last season,” Orange Dynamite Software Lead Nikhil Battapati ’25 said. “Although we didn’t make Worlds, I feel like we’ve set up such a great foundation for other seasons generally. ”

The team entered the competition in high spirits, coming off the high of placing as a finalist and winning a prestigious award at their last event. However, due to unfortunate luck, the robot did not perform as well as Orange Dynamite hoped it would in qualification matches.

“[Our low ranking] was kind of a reality check, and it made us consider ourselves from an objective type of stance, compared to how we felt going into states,” Battapati said. “[Our performance] felt a bit worse, but generally I feel like people were pretty optimistic.”

After two days of qualification matches, on Friday night, the team gathered in a hotel hallway to discuss their plans for the next day regarding the elimination round. After scouting the other teams, it was now time to comb through the data and determine the best teams to pair with as well as how to best play against the other alliances. For alliance selection, the top eight highest ranked teams became alliance captains, and were tasked to each pick two other teams to form an alliance to play in elimination matches. Alliance selection took place in a snake draft style, meaning that the highest-ranked team in the qualification matches, also known as the first seed, picked first, followed by the second through eighth seeds. The eighth seed would then pick twice in a row, before the seventh to first seeded teams picked in reverse order.

“[We realized] our rank wasn’t high enough to be [an alliance captain, so] we instead looked to see which teams could pick us and what would be the most strategic picks for other teams to see if we would even get picked,” Orange Dynamite Lead Iris Chen ’26 said.

The robot’s performance led to them being picked by the sixth seed alliance captain, team Grease Monkeys from San Antonio, Texas. Alongside their alliance captain and first pick team Energy HEROs from Houston, Texas, Orange Dynamite rounded out the sixth alliance as the second pick. Entering eliminations, the atmosphere was charged. To qualify for the World Championship, competitors needed to accumulate district points throughout the season by either performing well with their robot or winning awards, with the state championship being the last and most important chance to gain more points. To qualify for the World Championship, Orange Dynamite estimated they had to win as much as two or three matches in the elimination rounds – a huge task given the high caliber of their competition. Furthermore, the elimination rounds were in a double elimination bracket format, meaning that two losses would eliminate the team.

“At this point, we wanted to just try our best because we had never made it this far at states,” Chen said. “Personally, I just encouraged the drivers to try their best [and] do whatever it takes to have [our team perform] our best.”

Orange Dynamite lost their first match, going up against the third seed alliance with the odds stacked against them. For their next match, they played the seventh seed alliance. With their robot performing the best it had all season, the team clinched a victory, winning their second match 158-98. However, things then took a turn for the worse. For their third match, Orange Dynamite was set to compete against the fourth seed alliance, composed of three extremely strong robots.

“Ultimately, I think we made the best of what happened after alliance selection,” Battapati said. “We were all not really too focused on the [difficulty]. We were all thinking, ‘what can we do to make the robot as good as possible?’”

Leading up to the third and possibly final match, emotions ran high throughout the team as members took a moment to reminisce on the memories of the past season, appreciating the journey that had led to this moment. Many found themselves tearing up, especially the seniors as this would be the end of their journey in robotics. With single-minded determination, the team entered their last match and gave it their all.

“At no point [did we think] ‘it’s time to give up,’” Battapati said. “I think that was nice, that for the last match of [Orange Dynamite] none of us felt like we were giving up. We were going for it.”

While the third match ultimately ended in a loss, the day was still bright. Orange Dynamite won the Team Sustainability award, an award highlighting a team’s efforts to keep both their own team and their community sustainable for years to come.

“It took me a while to digest what occurred and what it truly meant, and looking back the last few years have been really really fun – I’ve grown a lot as a person and I’m excited,” Battapati said. “It’s bittersweet really, ending something that has taken such a big part of my life in high school. But I’m looking forward to new beginnings as well.”

All in all, though Orange Dynamite’s season came to a close, the team’s future is nothing short of glowing. With a record-breaking performance at both district competitions and the state championship, the tide has turned, creating a wave of success that the team will ride for years to come.

“It’s very realistic and reasonable to expect similar levels of growth [in the future],” Battapati said. “We know how to operate as a team that could make Worlds and we’ve laid the entire foundation, and because there’s dedicated people and dedicated leadership, I just feel like we’re going to have an increasingly better chance at advancing further and further as a team.”