LA Robotics Places One, Two in Early Competition

Lincoln Academy’s Team 8030A is, from left: Ben Arnold, Sebastian Morey, Noah Garnett, and Keiran Roopchand.

By Shayla Pheng ’27

Lincoln Academies robotics team 8030A has started their season with first and second place finishes in their first two tournaments. The team had their first victory at Maine Maritime Academy. The competition was two days long, from November 14th to the 15th. The following weekend on November 23, the team placed second at a tournament at the Lobstah Pot Tournament at John Bapst High School in Bangor.

The VEX Robotics game changes every year, making each season a new challenge. This year’s challenge involves picking up multiple balls and depositing them in specific locations, while preventing the other team from placing their balls in their designated spot.

Each round of competition consists of two main parts, an autonomous period and a driver-controlled period. One key component of scoring in every VEX Robotics match is the 15-second autonomous period, during which robots must operate entirely without human control. The team that scores the most during this window earns an additional 10-point autonomous bonus, often a crucial advantage. After this period, teams transition into a 1-minute and 45-second driver-controlled session, where students pilot their robots using remote control to score as many points as possible.

Team 8030A programmers Sebastian Morey and Keiran Roopchand have been refining Lincoln’s autonomous routine since the summer, focusing on consistency and reliability.

This work has paid off in their first two tournaments, where the success in the autonomous period secured crucial points for the LA team. Although they fell just short in the final round of The Lobstah Pot tournament, the team demonstrated exceptional strategy and technical skill, especially against a strong first-seed team from John Bapst.

The Bapst team had been dominant throughout the day, averaging nearly 90 points per match. Yet, their two lowest-scoring matches came against LA’s 8030A. In one matchup, 8030A held them to just 37 points, and in the final round to 61 points. After the match, a member of the John Bapst team remarked, “You really made us work for the win,” a testament to 8030A’s strong defensive play and game awareness.

Throughout both tournaments, 8030A ran one of the most consistent autonomous programs at the event, scoring reliably in nearly every match.

John Bapst, by contrast, struggled with consistency in autonomous mode and rarely scored during those first 15 seconds. Heading into the finals, the team crafted a smart strategy: win the autonomous bonus, then work to limit John Bapst’s scoring opportunities during the driver-controlled period.

However, in an unexpected twist, 8030A’s autonomous programming malfunctioned in the final round, the only time all day. Instead of scoring balls into the goal, the robot launched them out of the field entirely. Without the autonomous bonus, 8030A lost a key part of their strategy, and John Bapst claimed the match and the tournament championship.

In addition to the main competition at John Bapst, teams also participated in the Skills Challenge, a timed, solo performance where robots have one minute of driver control and one minute of autonomous operation to score as many points as possible. Team 8030A performed exceptionally well, finishing third overall in Skills.

The team now shifts its focus to its next event: a three-day national VEX competition at Worcester Polytechnic Institute that takes place December 4-6.

Shayla Pheng is a junior at Lincoln Academy, where she is a member of the Talon staff and Robotics team.

Below: Lincoln Academy’s Ben Arnold, Keiran Roopchand, and Noah Garnett prepare robot 8030A for competition at the Lobstah Pot tournament at John Bapst High School.