The Gunn Robotics Team (GRT) is comprised of a group of diverse students united by a singular love for engineering and robotics. The team recently returned from regional robotics competitions in Portland, Oregon. “If you go by our alliance that we got picked on, we placed maybe 5th [in Portland],” sophomore GRT member Shreyas Parat said.

The robotics competition For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) proposes a game challenge each year to high schools across the nation. After receiving the challenge, schools have six weeks to construct a robot for play. Success at regionals means a shot at the FIRST championships, an international challenge involving teams from Israel, China and other countries.

This year, the objective of the game was for robots to team up in randomly assigned groups of three to try to get as many balls as possible into opposing robot’s trailers. Human players could participate on the sidelines by throwing balls into rival trailers.

After finding out the game challenge during winter break, GRT spent the first few days of their building season brainstorming strategy and an action plan. “Once we got that, a group started designing specific three-dimensional diagrams on computers,” junior Neil Bhateja said. “Then all the real building could happen.”

After weeks of planning, strategizing and constructing, the team arrived in Portland early on March 4 for the regional competition. “We went to all the open practice matches, and were happy to see that the robot worked every time,” senior Manyu Belani said.

FIRST had decided to pay tribute to all members of the Apollo 13 mission during the competitions by creating playing fields similar to the moon’s resistance-free surface. The twist was that all robots competed on a fiberglass floor, a surface with virtually no traction. “All the robots moved a lot slower than normal,” Belani said.

Qualifying matches occurred on March 5 and 6 and although GRT was unable to rank high enough to continue independently, they were picked by a top-seeded team to participate in the quarterfinals.

“During quarterfinals there was a minor technical difficulty that cost us the win,” senior Tammy Hsu said. “But we have another chance at the competition at San Jose State.” GRT has been offered at Gunn for 12 years, and 10 of those years the teams went to nationals. “[San Jose State] is probably our last competition of the year,” GRT advisor Bill Dunbar said. “If the students qualify for nationals they may decide to go, and that’s in Atlanta, Georgia.”

The biggest competition for Gunn is “hands down, Bellarmin College Prep. They always win,” Dunbar said. Although GRT has a high record of winning “the competition’s getting fiercer and fiercer,” Dunbar added.

Additionally, teams are competing for the coveted Chairman’s Award, an award that goes to a team involved with their community to promote math and science. “There are other awards, but I am most looking forward to the last day when we find out if we get picked in finals, and then we win, of course,” Hsu said.

GRT won a special award in Oregon for robot control and automation. “The reason we won that award was because our programming in the robot is really cool,” Belani said. “And the robot is setup with a bunch of systems that are extremely programmable and unique. And for our drivers, we did something special for them this year, we gave them a heads up display. On one driver’s glasses there are a bunch of LEDs that tell them stuff about where the targets are and how close they are, and then on the other driver, he has a harmonica stain with a PSP on it, and he can look down at the screen and see through the camera that’s on our robot.”

Gunn’s red hair and team rituals are said to be an aid to their success. “Before our local competition, in Silicon Valley, we usually have an all-team meeting,” Hsu said. “And then Mr. Dunbar tells us a story about Henry M. Gunn and his various jobs in his past life.“ Although Dunbar strictly denied these stories’ existence, Hsu continued to describe the tales. “This year he was a hardcore biker dude, and before that he was an ice cream truck driver, and before that he was a male stripper,” she said, describing the belief that Henry M. Gunn is watching over them and they need to make him proud. “My students have vivid imaginations,” Dunbar said.

Students interested in joining GRT should sign up for the Engineering Class that meets F and G periods and fill out the team application. “By just taking the application seriously, you have a good chance of getting on the team,” Belani said. “The best thing about being part of GRT is just feeling like you are part of the team, and knowing that there are forty other kids at this school have been going through the same things as you have, that’s just an amazing feeling.”