The Homestead Kraken Pinion is currently considered the eighth-best robotics team in the world. On the Friday and Saturday of March 16 and 17, Homesteads Robotics team Kraken Pinion will compete against the Midwest region teams for the chance to move onto the World Championship.

Comprising of the Eastern, Western, Southern and Northern regions of the United States, four Super Regional Championships will be held in cities respective to its region. For the Northern Super Regional Championship, of which Kraken Pinion will be advancing to along with 71 other teams, the competition will be held at the US Cellular Center/DoubleTree Convention Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

The robotics competitions are organized by the international FIRST Robotics Challenge, an organization that yearly challenges robotics teams to build game-playing robots. Awards are given to those who qualify in any given area of the competition. Many factors are assessed by the judges including design, set up, team cooperation, and the team presentation: team members must explain the process in which they created the robot being used during competition.

It is for this reason, that robotics is so much more than just pitting robots against each other to complete tasks. The operation of a robotics team is like that of a company. While details vary from schools across, at its core, robotics teams act as its own entity to create the best possible robot. This includes marketing the robot, designing it, and recording the overall timeline of the robot construction. Similar to a company, each individual of the team works in their own field to help the overall team. One person may handle the physical construction of the robot while another might handle outreach and fundraising. Led by team captain Vidya Jayanthi, senior, the ‘CEO’ must plan for the success of its team.

It is this success in which Kraken Pinion is confident on bringing to Super Regionals. “Kraken Pinion is, by far, one of the best robotics teams I’ve ever had the pleasure to be apart of,” Jayanthi expresses. In her eyes, this is largely due to “the brilliance” of her own team. The team’s all-around helper, Elizabeth Castroverde, junior, describes her pride on the team based on its camaraderie:  “With all of our diverse personalities, we’ve been really able to connect really well,” Castroverde said. Team artist Max Krueger, sophomore, sums up the friendship: “we’re all like the Kraken working together, each person is the tentacle…and it all goes together.”

Apart from this team unity and cohesiveness, however, also lies plain old hard work and dedication; “they really work hard, I mean they really put in the time and effort above and beyond what I’ve seen from any other team…they probably put three times as much effort in than anybody else,” Jim Wilkerson, co-director of the Homestead Robotics Club, said. “I think our competitions show another side of Kraken Pinon which is definitely a lot of determination…we’ve won numerous awards for our efforts and we’ve seen [this] many times when we go onto the field due to increased driver practice,” Jayanthi explains.

All of this collaboration and hard work tied to past successes have set high hopes among team members and coaches for Super Regionals. With a historical match play score of 36-2 and a perfect 16-0 elimination round scoring, leading to four straight tournament victories including state, the director of Homestead Robotics, David Peterson, is very confident in Kraken Pinion’s ability; “I think they have a chance at winning the World Championship. After doing this for eight years, I know what a good robot is and what’s not a good robot,” Mr. Peterson explains. 

Currently ranked eighth in the world, if Kraken Pinion can ally itself well at Super Regionals, Worlds is well within the range of their capabilities. Optimism and confidence is high as the Homestead team reaches its upcoming competition.