After a rough start at 41st place out of 43, robotics Team 670 finished first in the highly competitive Chezy Championships held at Bellarmine College Preparatory from Sept. 27-29, business lead, sophomore Jaya Singhal said. 

Chezy Championships is an invitation-only robotics competition that hosts the best teams from all over the world, president, senior Karen Zhang said.

“It felt unbelievable since it was the third competition win in our 25-year history,” Zhang said. “I knew it would be a difficult competition, but we were all up for the challenge and excited.”

Team 670 applied two years ago and was rejected, which makes the victory this year more special, Singhal said. 

The team lost their early matches, as other teams were able to move game pieces, such as frisbee-like hoops, and shoot them into the hoop more efficiently, Singhal said.

“The problem is every time you win, you get a certain amount of ranking points, which brings your ranking higher,” Singhal said. “Two ranking points is a lot just by winning so it was really hard to make up that difference.”

After the team realized they would not rank as high as they would have hoped, Singhal said they switched their strategy to show off a feature only their robot had: a shooter with an adjustable angle. 

Usually, robots have a fixed shooting angle and will shoot game pieces over large structures in the middle of the stage. However, Team 670’s robot could shoot game pieces underneath the structure, reducing airtime and making game piece transfers more efficient, Singhal said.

When alliances were being picked, team morale was low, as teams with a low rank tend not to get selected, Zhang said.

“Every single time a team was about to get picked, we were like, ‘Guys, this is going to be our team. We’re going to get this alliance, we’re going to get this alliance,’ and we didn’t get any of them,” Singhal said. “We were going to pack up and leave.”

Much to the team’s surprise, they were selected to be in the first alliance, composed of top teams in the championship, Zhang said. 

Main driver, senior Sebastien Freitag said the selection gave them another chance after a poor performance, paving the way for the team’s win.

“We were amazed when we got picked, considering we were 41st in the rankings,” Freitag said. “[The high ranking teams] recognized that despite our low rankings, we can really shape up. When we were given a shot, we were able to deliver.”

Singhal said playing with the skilled teams on the first alliance was an honor, especially in her new role as human player, the person who feeds game pieces to the stage for robots to shoot. 

“The energy was amazing,” Singhal said. “It was my first time being a human player, so I was scared, but it was such a positive experience because all the team players gave me advice and helped me out. I made a lot of friends there.” 

The victory represented a lot for the team, Freitag said. Their hard work paid off, and making it into the first alliance advanced them to a prestigious position, Freitag said.

“This win showed us that even when we’re competing among powerhouse teams, we could still match up against them,” Freitag said. “It was a way to cap off a really successful robot.”