From Thursday, March 14 to Saturday, March 16, Lowell’s Robotics team, CardinalBotics, competed at the Sacramento For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) regional robotics tournament, which hosted 38 robotics teams. In addition to receiving two awards, the team’s success in the round has advanced them to the FIRST Robotic Competition World Championship in Houston, Texas, in April. This will be the seventh time that CardinalBotics will be attending the championship in their 13-year career.
The first of the team’s Sacramento awards, the Woodie Flowers Award, recognized Bryan Cooley, the Robotics coach, for his dedication and impact as a mentor throughout his 13 years with the team. Cooley felt grateful for the nomination and the appreciation that he earned for his efforts. “It was special because it’s been a long time that I’ve been working on the robotics team,” Cooley said. “It was really nice that… I got recognized for all the work I’ve put in after school.”

At the end of the tournament, CardinalBotics also won the Engineering Inspiration Award, which celebrates the winning team’s outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within their school, organization, and community. Senior Kaitlyn Zhou, the president of CardinalBotics, sees this achievement as the culmination of years of work. “It is so fulfilling to see that our team has made an impact on our community,” Zhou said. From founding the San Francisco Support Network, which connected robotics teams all over the city to provide assistance and feedback, to running free workshops at local libraries to teach children skills such as prototyping and programming, this award recognized CardinalBotics’s assortment of outreach initiatives to help promote youth in STEM.

Seniors on the Robotics team, like Zhou, feel that this tournament was a great way to end their high school robotics career. “I could not have asked for a more perfect senior year,” Zhou said. “This is the culmination of all the work that I have done on the team, and I am so happy to end this journey on a high note.”