On Feb. 25, 2024, the BectoBots achieved something they never have before: not only did they win every match that they competed in, but they scored the most points they ever have by being an alliance-team, which allowed them to continue to semi-finals. Although they did not advance to the finals, at the end of the night, they took home a trophy for the Motivate Award.
The criteria for the Motivate Award, taken from the official FTC website, is as follows:
- Team must show respect and gracious professionalism to everyone they meet at a FIRST Tech.
- Team must submit an engineering portfolio. The engineering portfolio must include a Team Organization Plan, which could describe their future goals and the steps they will take to reach those goals.
- Examples of what the plan could include are team identity, fund-raising goals, sustainability goals, timelines, outreach, finances, and community service goals.
- The team must be an ambassador for FIRST programs.
- Team must be able to explain the individual contributions of each team member, and how these apply.
The journey to their accomplishments was nothing short of impressive, with the founder of the team Mrs. Elisabeth Mackanin crediting her students for their success. “Each member contributes something important in some way that benefits us as a whole. I have watched them go from being in a place where the students and I were unsure how to move forward, to now being a unit that works well and progresses each year,” she explains. There are a multitude of roles that students on the team specialize in: engineer, mechanic, outreach, funding, main driver, etc. The team is always looking for new members and hands to help out and better fulfill these roles, although they already have an exceptional bunch of students.
To highlight some of these students, senior Timothy Pineda who is the team’s captain, main mechanic and engineer, expresses his content with the team’s efforts, “I am very proud of the team because before this, we haven’t done that well in competitions. Before I came onto the team sophomore year, we were not a very active team. I’m really proud that everyone now is able to contribute and we have made it the farthest we ever have at the latest competition, and won an award.”
Pineda describes his responsibilities as a captain as overseeing all members and branches of the team, “I make sure everyone is doing their part and being involved, and I organize all the meetings. My main responsibility, because we have a decent amount of members with great ideas, is that I have to record all their ideas and make sure everyone’s voices are heard. We brainstorm what the best idea is and the pros and cons of them.”
It seems that the pride within the team is all-throughout, with mechanic and outreach specialist, and junior captain, Nina Podkalicka sharing, “I am very proud. We have all put in a lot of work this year especially. Everybody’s tried to make something for the competition.”
Mrs. Mackanin offers commendable words on behalf of Pineda and Podkalicka, “Pineda was really the first member to bring the team together. He clearly had a vision of what we should be doing. He took it upon himself to learn all he could on his own and then shared his knowledge with all of us. He has become an amazing leader. Nina Podkalicka also became our ace mechanic early on and has learned how to do 3D printing which was a necessity for our competitions. She also contributes as much as she can and has helped new members get involved.”
BectoBots’ coder Medhasree Suram echoes her teammates and advisor, “I am incredibly proud of our team’s effort leading up to this achievement. In my opinion, our captains, Timothy Pineda and Nina Podkalicka were exceptional leaders this season. Our team as a whole dedicated all of our time during breaks and even brought the robot home to continue working on it. Our commitment and hard work truly paid off!”
Suram explains what being the team’s coder means, “I’ve worked on most of the autonomous code that helped us win numerous matches in our recent tournament. Additionally, I also participated in reviewing our engineering portfolio and involved myself in the mechanical aspects of our robot.”
It took dedication and passion for Becky to come as far as she has, as well as talented teammates and managers. Newcomer Brandon Orozco has already cemented his place onto the team by becoming their main driver within his first few meetings and has constructed an airplane structure which aided in the teams’ advancement to the semi-finals. “To add to the challenge, the airplane had to be made with a full sheet of paper, so cuts or augmentations to the paper were not allowed,” he further explained, concluding, “I think I’ve grounded my place in the team because of how many ideas I’ve put into play, with the airplane as the best example. I am absolutely planning on sticking to the robotics team next year if I can.”
The making of their robot, Becky, was “a lot of trial and error” and they admit that there is still ample work to be done into next year, but their hope isn’t lost. “We’re gonna try to do better than we did this year,” Podkalicka affirms, “We’ll just keep continuing our main goals.” The main goals in question are expanding members, obtaining ample fundraising, aiming to go to state championships and putting in their best effort every day. Pineda also adds in, as he is graduating this year, “I hope the team itself qualifies for the state championship and I hope they keep learning and growing. The goal by the end of this year is to reach out to surrounding middle schools and continue the passion for the First Tech Challenge.”
Although it is the end for the BectoBots this season, next year they will embark on a completely new journey with new members and deep motivation. As Pineda concludes, “Stem really is the future.”
Follow the BectoBot’s journey on X: HERE.
The BectoBots are selling treats after school every Tuesday during the week of March in front of the JW-PAC Center to fundraise for parts! Don’t miss it!
