Written by Students: Annabella Mata, Kallie Santon, Jule Elliot and Remy Judi

Down in points with only 60 seconds left in the competition finals, our all-girl drive team scrambled to pilot our robot to pull ahead in points. We didn't realize that in just a minute's time, we were going to win our 3rd ever competition.

We are the High Tekerz, a FIRST Robotics team based in Burien, Washington. We are a community team, and we accept any students from the community, middle and high school age, to join our team and participate in our competitions. We use hands-on learning to develop many skills during our seasons, like programming, designing, CAD, teamwork, public speaking, math, and even art, which can be used for much more than t-shirts!

Washington Girls' Generation Competition

October 18th and 19th, we participated in an off-season competition designed to highlight underrepresented communities, particularly women and girls, in STEM. The competition called Washington Girls’ Generation allows girls to take the spotlight as they become the drive team for the competition.

WATCH their Amazing day unfold!

In between matches, as our robot pit crew was changing the battery and adjusting our mechanisms, our team bonded a lot through communication, shared breaks, and friendly words like “You’re doing really good” or “We wouldn't be here without your help” to support each other.

Supporting other teams despite our own challenges

We would also help support other teams; however, we could provide them with tools and parts. Despite the climbing mechanism on our robot breaking after the regular season competitions, we adapted by finding strategies that complemented the other team’s robots. For the finals, we were responsible for scoring the lower levels, freeing up partners to simultaneously score the higher levels, making us a valuable alliance partner. We were 1 of 3 robots working together as an alliance.

Throughout qualification rounds, the teams are randomly chosen for each match to be alliance partners. Even though half of the students on our team had not participated in a robotics competition before, they worked hard to keep the robot
maintained between matches by repairing it when needed, which led to the success of the drive team. Such repairs as our lifting mechanism being adjusted to go up and down without getting stuck and making sure all our bolts were nice and snug.

After qualification rounds were finished, the final rankings determined which teams became alliance captains. Being ranked #15 put us in a good position to be selected in the draft for the playoffs. Bear Metal 2046 (captain of Alliance #6) selected RAID 4469, and our team competed alongside them. Things started off well with a win in our first match, but a loss in the second sent us down to the lower bracket. We had to win 3 straight to make it to the finals.

However, a surprising upset placed the #1 Alliance in our way. We had to win against an alliance whose team captain was piloting the 2025 world champion robot. We beat them and made it to the finals. We now faced the #2 Alliance (who beat us earlier) in the best-of-three format.

Match one, of the finals was nerve-wracking

We had a strategy planned, but it didn’t make us less nervous. When we won, it took us a second to process, but our confidence rose so high, and our pit crew was so supportive.

Match two, the opposing alliance gets more points

We were now confident with our strategy, and so far, it was working great. But unfortunately, the opposing alliance was able to get more endgame points than us, which was sad, but we were still sure of our victory.

Match three, the excitement builds...

It was now the third match. Somehow, the field felt warmer, the lights a bit brighter, and the announcer a little louder. This was it, the final match, our last chance to prove to our team that we could make it. During the match our two alliance members were doing amazing. They were scoring great! Every game piece we scored was a step towards something we’d been wanting to achieve, and our points were climbing faster and faster. You could tell everyone in that gym was holding their breath. So many questions were floating around that room. Would we overtake the opposing Alliance? Would we be able to stay in the lead? And we all had our breath held until that final buzzer. The alliance was gathered in
a circle, anticipating the score tally. The animation played, and the text read: BLUE WINS! That was it. We did it. We won girl’s gen! It was surreal; two wins in one season, first Clackamas, Oregon (our first competition of the season) then this.
What an amazing end to the season!

As a small team composed of many rookies, the way we pulled through to win this
competition made us so proud and filled us with excitement for the next season. The whole team, many of whom were rookies just new this summer, did so much to help our victory. This being the first time Tekerz has ever won a girl’s gen competition since 2011, we had accomplished so much. We had many successes and could not even exist without supporters over the years.

To help the team continue to experience such triumphs please donate.
https://hcb.hackclub.com/donations/start/tekerz-robotics

Share this article
The link has been copied!