2023-2024 VIQC Taiwan Open Elementary Group: Scorekeeper referee

I attended the VIQC Taiwan Open Elementary Group Competition as a scorekeeper referee. Unlike field reset, the scorekeeper referee has the job of counting the score of each match and confirming the score with the team members.

We have two scorekeeper referees and one head referee watching one field at a time. There are four fields in total, and two will run simultaneously. There are a total of four scorekeeper referees and two head referees on the tournament field.

There were a total of 30 practice matches, 240 qualification matches, and 30 final matches. The whole competition is split into two days. During the first day, teams get to run skills challenges in the morning. While practice matches and 100 qualification matches will be played in the afternoon.

The second day is a little more busy since there are a total of 170 matches that will be played. We barely have time to rest, and we spend most of the time standing and walking between fields. Despite the uneasy job of a scorekeeper referee, I still enjoy the experience a lot. 

I got to communicate and talk with the teams while confirming the score. I was also able to chat with other scorekeeper referees. I helped with robot inspection and scorekeeping, these were really a great experience and super fun to enjoy.

2023-2024 VTO VRC Middle School: Competition Volunteer 16 hours

I participated in volunteering for 16 hours at the VRC VTO middle school competition. I was a participant in the competition that was 1 day before this one, the high school group national championship. I decided to stay two more days in Hsinchu to participate in volunteering.

I was assigned the job as a field reset in the main tournament field. I found it interesting since I could watch the tournament from a very close angle, a view that only staff and referees can enjoy. Two other volunteers helped with resetting the field. Our job was to place the triballs in the correct position and count if any ball is missing.

Even though I got to enjoy the view of competitions, I still felt tired after working 8 hours a day. It was a very memorable experience. I got to talk and meet a lot of people and witness some amazing scores teams had accomplished.

VRC Taiwan Open High School: Tournament Champion, Think Award

Taiwan Open, the national competition that has world qualifying awards, is the one I will be introducing. This is the second to the last competition we will attend in Taiwan this season, and is especially important since there is three spots to qualify for worlds.

The excellence award, and two teams on the tournament champion alliance. These are what we are aiming for in this competition. Also, if one team got two of the world qualifying awards, the eligibility will be passed down to the skills ranking. That is why skills challenges are also very important.

We continued to improve the robot we used for the previous competition, PAS signature event. After analyzing and organizing our time after PAS, we think that we don't have enough time to reconstruct a robot and also fully practice using it.

The competition is separated into two days. First day morning is all about skills challenge and driver's meeting. While the qualification matches starts in the afternoon. On the second day, the qualification matches will end around noon, and the final matches will start. Most likely after day 1, teams will be able to know if we have a chance to get qualified for worlds.

In our first day of competition, we did good and won all qualification matches while obtaining the AWP points, placing us at rank 1 in qualification. We got a score of 168 in driver skills and 124 in autonomous at the end of the day. The judges also interviewed us for the judging process.

At that rate, what we have to do is to continue scoring high in qualification and get a higher score in autonomous skills. There is also a possibility that the judges will come again to interview us for the second time.

I spent some time at night improving our programming skills route and strategy. I also added some fool proof program to prevent the robot from getting stuck.

We ended up ranking 2nd in qualifications and 4th in skills. We weren't able to score high in autonomous mainly because me and another teammate didn't perform well in skills match loading. However, our driver skills score broke our own record with 184 points. The judges also came to ask some questions regarding our robot.

In finals, we selected 66994A as our alliance partner, and we got tournament champion. This means we are qualified for worlds!!!! I am surprised yet delighted that we are able to go to world championship in our first year of competition, and I will try to do my best to prepare for worlds.