On Saturday, November 9th, Stratford’s Mecha-Lions junior varsity robotics team competed in the FTC robotics competition at King’s Academy, placing 5th out of 12th at their first regional league meet of this year’s season. The team designed a robot to move in any direction and easily pick up game pieces with a foam-tipped claw and rotatable, extendable arm. Stratford won three and lost two matches against other teams in the Bay Area, with drivers and assistants Vansh Gutgutia, Rhoy Xu, and Jason Lin excelling at tasks such as collecting game pieces and assisting the team they were allied with, which varied each match. The hardware subteam will now analyze the strengths and shortcomings of the robot based on its performance in these matches, effectively redesigning the robot for their next competition in a month. More specifically, the software subteam will be looking into implementing autonomous functionality. Good luck to the team in their next competition!