There is a Light at the End of the Tunnel
By Rishabh Jain
Hope is a feeling of intense plea, the true desire for something to happen. Hope is a prayer! It’s proven in all religions, that we hope God will keep us safe. Hope can be used anywhere and everywhere. It is a universal prayer.
Hope can really describe my ongoing 2021–2022 VEX IQ robotics season. My first qualifier was in Kimball, Minnesota. As our team made way through first round, I felt extremely excited. The tournament was really competitive. Unfortunately, our tournament rounds did not go well. We did not score well. If we were better, we could have won the qualifier and gone to State, but we did not. It seemed that everything was lost. Later our coach told us that there was another opportunity to go to the state tournament. State invited the top 50 teams, we ranked 32nd and so, we got invited. Our wish had come true! But there was still more to hope for and a lot of hard work to do.
As we went to our first match at the state level, I felt elated. Energy fizzed like soda inside me. Ding-ding! The buzzer signaled us to begin the round. I fumbled with the keys on my controller to drive the robot in the right direction. I scooped two balls in my feeder and then lined the robot with the basket. The basket was our main target – the very key to how our robot functioned. I pressed the button to launch and oops… the balls missed the basket and landed in the low goal which gave us four points. A ring-a-ling indicated we had to switch drivers. I handed the controller to my teammate who was the best driver on our team. Nine out of ten times he launched the balls in the basket. We ended up only scoring 27 points with our alliance team. We were very upset with our low score. As a team we discussed how we could do better. We hoped for the best in the next round.
It was time for our next round. The timer started and I was trying to put the balls in the basket. I was able to put in one ball. The remote was then passed to my partner, our best player. He put three balls in the basket. Time was up and “Voila!” we scored 66 points together with our alliance team. That score moved us from rank 32 to rank 3 and made us eligible to participate in the elimination round.
In the elimination round we had to beat a score of 62 points. We had a lot of mixed feelings at this point. It was our turn and yippee, we made a commendable score of 78 points. We basked in our glory. Now we had to wait to see if we qualified for the world competition. Two more teams had to play and had to beat our score. They did well and scored 80 points. At this point we were not sure if we qualified for the world tournament. After so much hard work and with hope in our minds we waited for the announcement. Our team won second place in the state tournament and the most awaited news, “We received our invite to participate in the world tournament in Dallas, Texas.”
Our coach informed us that we were the first elementary team in the robotics history of Mankato, Minnesota to qualify for the world competition. All of us felt exhilarated at the end of the day and started planning our trip to Texas.
However, a day later we were informed of some unpleasant news. Due to policy related issues, Coach told us that we could not proceed to the next competition. I felt extremely distraught and sad. My emotions were wrecked because of this policy. But we did not lose hope. Our parents decided to talk to the CEO to see if any amendments could be made to the policy. We all hoped that we could go. The feeling of hope, a prayer, a wish and a twist of fate! The final result was on our side. We were allowed to attend Worlds. Yes! Hope had come our way. We have begun preparing for our next journey and hopefully we will shine there too.
My narrative has described hope in the best possible way. Hope is always the last chance. Celebrate hope, my dear friends!