MATE PA 2018

Dreams do come true.

Despite not having a working underwater robot before 2 A.M on May 12, my robotics team and I still managed to pull off a historic and unprecedented win at the 2018 MATE ROV Pennsylvania Regional Competition.

We won 1st Place for technical documentation, 1st Place for the marketing display, 3rd place for product demonstration, and 2nd place overall, beating out 33 other high school and college teams from the Northeastern region (we beat out Thomas Jefferson High School!!) and narrowly losing 1st place to Drexel University - a college team. And I even won the most outstanding senior award!

What made the victory that much sweeter was that my team and I had done so well despite our circumstances. Having gone through 3 different iterations of this club, bouncing from organization to organization in attempts for legitimacy as a robotics focused group, it has been nothing less than extremely difficult to keep the MATE robotics organization afloat. Being kicked out of High Tech, fighting to keep our hard-earned money and the robot itself, waiting 3 excruciating long months simply to get a 4-H charter, sending hundreds of panicked emails to local technology and manufacturing companies for sponsorships - my 4-year journey with MATE robotics has been anything but easy.

This week is the internationals competition so it's the final stretch. I've been mostly hands off as I've wanted to hand off the stress and the pressure of managing to next year's President - I don't expect we'll do well at all unfortunately, but it will surely be an experience that will be unforgettable and eye-opening as my team and I meet robotics enthusiasts from all over the world.