Editor’s Note:

(During the Covid-19 break we at the roar would like to publish some of the stories from before March. Thank you for allowing us the little break from the current news cycle.)

11/23/2019, 3:57 PM. Vex Robotics Qualifier. Coming hot off of a 30 – 9 stomp against Greely in the quarter finals, Teams 1596Z and 1596E from Biddeford (3rd Seed) stared down their opponents Team 5156G and 5156C from York (2nd Seed). York has home field advantage. The crowd roars. Cheers for York can be heard on the playing field. It’s the Semi Finals which means whoever wins this match will move on and the other team will be knocked out of the tournament. The announcer hypes up the crowd. One thing for sure, this’ll be the match of the month.

The buzzer is heard. “Autonomous Period, start!” Both teams flip the autonomous switch located on their panel and the round begins. 1596Z begins and gets one point for Biddeford. 1596E tries, but gets stuck inside the goal, resulting in a 1-1 tie and Biddeford in a big disadvantage positionally.

 “Driver period will begin in 3, 2, 1!” 1596E’s driver Jacob McNeil tries desperately to escape and after a bit is able to do so. Fortunately while that was going on 1596Z activates its extended ramp. Meanwhile their opponent had grabbed an orange block and placed it in the Tower. This doubled the value of the Orange Cubes by 2. This makes 1596Z have to change the game plan of going for green cubes and instead going for orange, 1569E decides to play some defense and pushes one of the York robots out of the way, which allows 1569Z’s Driver Joshua Pauqet to place a stack of 5 Orange cubes. This is in comparison to the 4 Orange cubes previously placed by York during 1596E’s escape. 

1 minute left. 1569E decides to place another orange block in the multiplier slot, further doubling the orange cubes value to a whopping 4 times of the original value. However, It misses and it falls out allowing the opposing team to place a green cube. This changes the values of green cubes to 2. It looks hopeless, but then, 1596Z has the idea of getting both types of blocks. It scoops up 3 green and 3 orange cubes and places them in the goal. 30 seconds. The opponents try desperately to repair their mistake, but 1596E’s defense on the green block tower is too strong. At 3:59 PM, Biddeford won 42 – 38. 

By 6 points they move onto finals and automatically qualify for states. Unfortunately, York’s teams 5156F and 5156A ultimately avenged their fall and won 34 – 25 in the finals against Biddeford. The Robotics Teams of Joshua Paquet, Cori Cote, Lilyanne Melton, Alex Truehart, Jacob McNeil and Coley Hatt with Coach Carole LePauloe finished with 2nd Place overall in the VRC qualifier. States would’ve been this Saturday, March 14th 2020, however it has been postponed indefinitely by the Robotics Institute of Maine due to health concerns.