Documentarians — particularly those who track their subjects in real time — are at the mercy of unexpected developments.
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| Team Sakura Tempesta's mentor, Kanon — seated, third from left — watches apprehensively as their robot tackles its required tasks, during a test run performed in front of a room filled with sponsor spectators. |
Jacobs set out to track four high school teams participating in the annual FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC): from kickoff announcement and “kit reveal,” through regional competitions, and concluding with the championship face-offs.
One or two students and mentors are profiled from each team; we get a sense, through their eyes, of the respective robotics units.
(Davis’ stellar Citrus Circuits team, alas, was not among the chosen few. Which simply means that Jacobs didn’t look hard enough.)
Teams from throughout the world attend the January 4 kickoff event — either in person or remotely — which is hosted by (among others) actor Mark Hamill and FIRST founder Dean Kamen.
(Kamen comes by this involvement honestly; he holds more than 1,000 patents and is perhaps best known for inventing the Segway and iBOT, along with portable dialysis machines and insulin pumps. He founded FIRST — “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology” — in 1989, as a means of inspiring students’ interest in STEM fields.)
The challenge changes each year; this particular season is dubbed “Infinite Recharge.” Each team is given an identical “build kit”; how the components are used is up to individual ingenuity.
Cue a classic quote by Einstein: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
The scenario concerns a futuristic city that must activate a protective shield before an asteroid strike. This is accomplished by student-built robots that scoop up and shoot “power cells” (yellow foam balls) into targeted holes, to activate the “shield generator.” The shield then must be manipulated via a control panel, and — finally — two robots must “park” by hanging themselves from a balance beam, with extendable “arms,” so that both robots are wholly off the floor.
The teams greet the details of each year’s challenge, Kamen explains, with equal parts “excitement and terror.”
Terror, because the teams have only six weeks to build their robots.
We first meet Jacob, a spectrum student at one of Los Angeles’ Da Vinci Schools. He’s camera shy but endearingly candid, acknowledging his fascination with classical music (“It’s pure math”). Stumbling across his school’s FRC classroom one day was sheer happenstance, and — that quickly — he found a home as a member of Team 4201: The Vitruvian Bots.
Team 4201 has money, resources, 16 members and an impressive shop; they’ve been doing this for years. Their facility with 3D printers, lathes, coding and all manner of power tools is jaw-dropping: almost beyond the ken of us mere mortals.
In stark contrast, Team 6904 — Terawatts, based at Los Angeles’ David Starr Jordan High School — is new to the game, having debuted in 2018. The Watts-based school’s resources are meager; the four-member team, lacking even a classroom in which to work, sets up in a hallway.
They nonetheless boast a resident genius: Aaron, a jock-turned-coder and astonishing jack-of-all-trades whose instincts and knowledge are flat-out amazing. He’s adorably humble on camera; he certainly impresses his mentor/science teacher, Fatima, who marvels at what her students can accomplish, with so little.
Recognizing their limitations, the Terawatts team ignores the shooting mechanism, instead focusing on building a robot capable of the “hanging park.”
This sort of “specialization” is valuable, because an important FIRST element is “coopertition.” Following first-round heats during regional competitions, two-team “alliances” are formed. Ergo, a team with robots that are weak in the “hanging park” will find value in a team that has solved that problem.
We then travel to Chiba, Japan, to meet Kanon, mentor of Team 6909: Sakura Tempesta. She’s a remarkably busy young woman who attends college in St. Paul, Minn., but returns to Japan each winter in order to mentor the FRC team she founded in 2017.
Kanon has made a point of “giving back” because, recalling her childhood, “I’d never seen a female engineer.”
Sakura Tempesta has formidable presence: enough to secure backing from numerous sponsors, which is a rare feat for a Japanese high school.
Mexico City, finally, is home to Team 4010: Nautilus, founded in 2012. The effervescent Mariana leads their “chairman’s team,” a support group that embodies FIRST’s core mission. These “auxiliary” squads vie for the coveted Chairman’s Award, which honors the team that best helps transform the culture in ways that will inspire greater levels of respect for, and youth involvement in, STEM fields.
Mariana and her teammates work with children in foster care facilities. “We build a legacy,” she proudly explains.
The six weeks pass; regional competitions begin. Terawatts and the Vitruvian Bots wind up in the same Los Angeles-based event, along with numerous other teams. Tension runs high.
And this is where I reveal that we’re talking about the winter of 2020.
As the world shuts down, and all subsequent FIRST events are canceled, Jacobs might have been left without a means of finishing her film. But no: She’s granted a heartwarming detour.
Because what so many of these undaunted, take-charge FRC teams do instead, as the pandemic spreads, is simply amazing.
It’ll bring tears to your eyes.
Superb save, Ms. Jacobs.
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