the story

Bassett Elementary needed some good news.

Enrollment was down. Student absences were up. Nobody wanted to come to our boring school.

Would sending our robotics team to the state championship help?

The teachers didn’t know. We had other things on our minds. Our students were packed into apartments in the densest part of Los Angeles. They weren’t motivated. They didn’t care. Plus, out of 750 kids there were only seven on the team. How fair was that? But the robotics coach, a marathon runner (who couldn’t set a DVR) kept exhorting us. “We’re going to Pomona for the state championship. Come cheer us on.” Was she nuts? And give up our Saturday?

Well, maybe just this once. 

Pomona Fairplex. We’d take fieldtrips there in September, so our kids could see real pigs and cows. There wasn’t much happening there in March: Just a bunch of roboticists, driving around the grounds, getting lost. But then we saw kids and parents in team tee-shirts, toting robots to Exposition Hall 9. The robots were all made from the same kits but no two of them looked alike. The players “drove” them with video game controllers, like the kind you use with a PS4. That’s why our kids were such good drivers. Their parents couldn’t afford afterschool programs, so playing video games was all they ever did. 

You and your partner team got the same points per match. Your total points for ten matches determined your rank. The Bassett Bots started off strong, moving the balls into the goals, balancing on the teeter-totter. But then we got partnered with weaker teams and our point total plunged. The Captain started to cry. Coach rushed him past the camera that was live-streaming the competition. You could see her encouraging him in the practice area along with his dad. 

 “Go slower,” Dad and Coach were telling him. “Don’t rush.” In the finals he took his time. Going slower made a difference. We placed third. We were going to the World Championship in Kentucky!

Kentucky? How were we going to pay for air and lodging when we couldn’t afford supplies? The team started a Go Fund Me page and, yes, a couple of us pitched in. This robotics thing was catching on. All the kids were wearing Bassett Bot tee shirts. And then the District ponied up for travel and hotel. 

A few weeks later, we’re boarding a jet: seven kids, two parents, Coach, her assistant, a couple of us teachers. One dad had never been on a plane, let alone his daughter. At the airport in Louisville we saw KFC’s and racehorse statues all over the place. We had all the bacon we could eat at the hotel buffet. 

The Louisville Conference Center was enormous. The Kentucky Derby bugler kicked things off. There were laser lights, a parade of nations, 350 teams. Some of the robots looked like farming combines, gobbling up the balls, plunking them into the goals. Our little bot performed well too. “Watching the live-stream,” they texted from Cali.  “You guys rock.” By the end of Day One, we were in 37th place.

Day Two we really started climbing. 17th place, tenth place, sixth, fourth. The last match was a nail-biter, to qualify for the quarter finals we needed a strong run. We scored a lot of goals, but right as we mounted the teeter-totter, the other team’s robot lost a wheel. Luckily, their driver had some chops of her own, guiding what was left of that bot up onto the teeter-totter just as the buzzer went off.

Yes, we made it to the quarter finals and no, we didn’t advance. But when the kids got back to Bassett Elementary, they ran through a tunnel of cheering friends. Did robotics change the school forever? Maybe. Did it unite the teachers as one? Oh, come on, now. Us?Did the kids in those crowded apartments embrace it? Definitely. It was like they were shot out of a cannon. Where they land, nobody knows.