By Hannah Park
Fountain Valley High School (FVHS)’s 24433 “Inkineers” robotics team competed alongside 224 teams from around the world in the 2024 FIRST® Championship at Houston, Texas. After three days of intense competition—from April 17 to 19—the team placed 17th out of 56 teams in their division. This marks the first time a FVHS robotics team has competed at the international level.
“We were pretty disappointed when we didn’t make it to the playoffs, but … we were really happy to even make it to the World Championships,” sophomore and team captain Aaron Nguyen said.
The Inkineers still made an impressive showing, winning seven out of 10 matches against some of the best teams around the globe. Not only that, they competed with 7,300 teams throughout this season to make it to the World Championships (or “Worlds”).
Many of the Inkineers had trained for years leading up to Worlds, joining the team during their freshman year—and others even before that.
“Suri, Matthieu and I have been on the team back [since] middle school,” Aaron Nguyen said.
In addition to Aaron Nguyen, Hewitt Huynh (sophomore), Audrey Tran (junior), Charlie Nguyen (junior), Matthieu Hoang (sophomore), Suri Le (sophomore), Jace Jennings (sophomore), Dylan Nguyen (sophomore) and Katie Tai (freshman) led the team through meets, interleague competitions, regionals and, finally, Worlds.
The team competed in the FIRST Technology Challenge (FTC), where teams designed, built and programmed their own robots that participated in timed games. “FIRST” is an acronym used by a nonprofit: “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.”
All nine members of the Inkineers played crucial roles. Robotics team members tackled programming, graphic design, finance, business, building and computer-aided design—all essential components of a successful robotics venture. Builder Hewitt Huynh elaborated on the latter.
“Computer aided-design, or CAD, [allows you to] 3D-model your robot before building it and test if it works,” Huynh said.
The Inkineers won their penultimate competition, the “SoCal Regionals,” at Monrovia High School on March 9. This allowed them to advance to Worlds as well as refine their skills and competition strategy.
“The challenge remains the same throughout the entire year,” Aaron Nguyen said.
What was the competition’s objective? This video describes how two pairs of opposing teams pitted their robots against each other to see who could score the most points. Teams could score points by performing various maneuvers, such as placing hexagonal pixels on a slanted board, parking robots in specific areas and even getting robots to dangle mid-air from a rigging structure.
All of the team’s accolades came at the cost of hours of hard work—during spring vacation, members met from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., on average. They continued to test the robot’s functionality, refined strategies and prepared an engineering portfolio to report on their progress leading up to Worlds. However, members say it was all worth it.
“It’s the fun you have during robotics that keeps [you] going through … all these years,” Huynh said. “And the people, too.”
The team has made some fond memories over the years, both through competitions and outside them.
“[We] had bonfires, [and during Spring Break], the builders and I, we even had a sleepover to get the robot working,” Aaron Nguyen said.
The team would also like to thank FVHS robotics teacher Ryan Pham for offering them the opportunity to participate in the FTC. He served as their mentor and coach and helped lobby for the team as they prepared for Houston.
Overall, the Inkineers agree that they had a fantastic time at Worlds, and they’re proud of the determination that carried them through.
“What’s special about FIRST is their emphasis on learning and sportsmanship, so that everyone wins,” Aaron Nguyen said. “Lots of robots were going to lose. But everyone in the competition learns and is inspired.”
