This past Saturday, the OVS robotics program hosted its first meet since the COVID pandemic hit, rolling out three robots that dominated the competition in a practice meet that does not affect league rankings.
“Meet 0” took place at the Littlefield Student Commons at the Upper Campus.
The OVS Upper Campus robotics program put forward two teams: Spudbot, a team comprised mostly of members that are new to the robotics program, and Spudnik, which is made up of more experienced members of the robotics program.
Also competing for OVS was Savage Spud, a team comprised of middle school students at the Lower Campus.
The high school teams blew the competition out of the water, with Spudnik racking up a contest-high top score of 88 points.
All the students on the teams were ecstatic, but no one was happier than Chris Westcott, the head of the high school robotics program.
“We were able to build two incredible robots, one of which was the best-performing robot of the meet,” he said. “I’m really proud of what the teams have been able to accomplish and hope to see our progress going into Meet 1.” 
At Meet 0, scores and rankings of a team do nothing to affect its overall season. The meet is just a practice for teams to check in and see how they’re doing compared to other teams and practice for a real meet.
The Robots competed in a two minute and thirty second game in which they moved pieces of “freight” and rubber ducks into various team-specific places.
The game began with a 30-second autonomous phase in which the robots could score points using only pre-programmed instructions and sensors. Following this was a two-minute, driver-controlled period where the robots scored points by moving pieces into shipping hubs and team specific warehouses.
Meet 1 will take place on Saturday Nov. 13, when all 14 teams in the FIRST Tech Challenge, League V, will be on hand with their robots and ready to compete.
