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Animated, Aubrey Tipps ’26 clarifies reasons behind penalties in a match with Head Referee Cruz Monrreal II. The official abilities of a human player (team member feeding game pieces to the robot) could be changed between competitions, making it important to ensure the driver team’s knowledge was accurate.
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Attentively, Arhaan Jafri ’27 uses an allen key to tighten the robot’s wheel. Many teams scrambled to execute these small fixes in between matches, as the smallest issues could be the difference between a loss and a win.
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Mid-match, Bao Nguyen ’28, Ishaan Desai ’29, Arhaan Jafri ’27, and Aubrey Tipps ’26 smile incredulously while chasing evasive game pieces. With Slingshot’s usual driver absent from the competition, the other members put in an effort to adapt seamlessly into their new roles.
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Deep in discussion, seniors Jining Liu and James Tam examine the live stream display. As the lead programmers behind the execution of the competition streams, the two had created a routine for setting up and fixing potential errors before the start of each event.
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Eyes locked on the robot, Bao Nguyen ’28 drives his robot forward to push a lever, releasing the game pieces he had scored. Team drivers spent hours practicing before competitions to hone their skill and familiarity with the field.
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Calmly, Dalia Ahmed ’28 tightens a screw on her robot. Working under pressure was a factor both rookie teams (Atlatl and Hunga Munga) had grown to improve tremendously.
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Focused, Ishaan Desai ’29 watches as James Tam ’26 points to the playback of their autonomous (robot action without human input) practice run. The two Slingshot members put together their skills to maximize the efficiency of their programming.
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Carefully, Aubrey Tipps ’26 works to put together the game field before the start of competition. Many Westwood Robotics officers and other volunteers showed up early in the morning to prepare the gym for competing teams.
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Focused, Ishaan Desai ’29 adjusts his robot to set up for a practice autonomous (robot action without human input) run. Going forward, Slingshot aimed to focus on consistency during the autonomous period.
Pounding footsteps and shouts echoed through the Westwood gymnasium on Saturday, Nov. 15, as For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology (FIRST) Tech Challenge (FTC) teams competed in FIRST in Texas GEMS League Meet 3 (FiT LM3).
As their last competition before the FiT-Central GEMS League Tournament determining further qualification, pressures ran high as teams scrambled to make each of their matches count. The Westwood Robotics teams showcased merit: Tomahawk finished rank one, Slingshot rank two, Hunga Munga rank four, and Atlatl rank 13. Slingshot also finished with the Event High Score in their fourth match alliance.
“Our Westwood teams were the best they’ve been this season,” FTC Director Aubrey Tipps ‘26 said. “Tomahawk in particular made a huge comeback, going from a pretty low rank to number one this competition. It’s impressive too, because three out of four of our teams had essentially brand new robots, and still were able to perform incredibly well.”
Before the competition, Westwood Robotics officers and volunteers piled into the gym to set up the event and prepare the competition livestream. These livestreams were programmed and designed by Director of Information Jining Liu ‘26, with help from James Tam ‘26. Over this season alone, the pair has garnered over 2000 views from competing students and parents.
“Livestreaming the event is important because it helps spread our program to a larger audience beyond our local region,” Liu said. “My favorite part of working the livestreams is that wonderful feeling after everything is set up on the morning of competition, when we can finally breathe a sigh of relief after all the hard work.”
Despite unavoidable complications during the competition, team members drew on experience from the first three league meets that taught them how to respond and react accordingly. For example, Slingshot’s first match was incorrectly scored, forcing them to redo the match and lose the points from their high-scoring autonomous (robot action without human input) period, causing frustration. Nevertheless, they managed to quickly reset and win the match.
“I ended up having to be our driver for this league meet because our normal driver wasn’t able to make it today,” Slingshot member Arhaan Jafri ‘27 said. “The first [cancelled] match was able to serve as my [practice] driving under actual competition conditions. [However], on our first run, during the autonomous section, we scored twelve out of the twelve balls, [but] on the redo, we only scored eleven out of twelve. This is something I’m looking to fix before league champs, making sure our software team nails down consistency.”
Other teams found that their journey through league meets amplified their consistency. Particularly, Tomahawk ended up ranking first in the entire division, a large upgrade from their previous performances.
“We did better in this competition than the others because our entire team was really organized,” Tomahawk member Karthik Borosu ‘28 said. “[Everyone] did their individual parts really well which together [helped] us accomplish this rank.”
With less than two months until their qualifier competition, FTC teams are shifting their focus to not only work on their robot but also their presentational skills for the opportunity to win an award at their next competition. The Westwood Robotics teams will compete at their fourth FiT-Central GEMS League Tournament, or the League Championships, on Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026.
“I’m incredibly proud of all our teams,” Tipps said. “It’s awesome to [be confident that] Westwood teams will take the first, second, and third place in the league going into our League Tournament in January.”
