Team Tators (also known as Team 2122) is getting ready for a brand new season of robotics competitions, filled with brand new challenges and a fresh team to train up to fill the shoes of last years’ inventive competitors, but who is Team Tators?

Founded in 2007, Team Tators is a Boise Idaho based robotics team, a part of the FIRST robotics program. Made up of thirty five students and mentors, the team works multiple times throughout each month to design, manufacture, assemble, and wire a robot suited to completing tasks for competitions.

Last year, Team Tators was a semi-finalist at the World Championships in Houston for the 2022 “Fast React” challenge. The name of the game was to score tennis ball sized projectiles into a basket to score points in two minutes and thirty seconds. A winner is decided by who scores the most points. Due to a malfunction in the autonomous programming, Team Tators robot was shooting projectiles at an 80% accuracy rate, with a 20% margin of error, ending them in second overall. But Team Tators is looking to bounce back.

A brand new robot is currently in development, to improve the previous design and also help mentor new recruits joining the team. 

“The mechanical team is looking to have the robot done in the next few days, then the electrical team will be able to work on it to prepare for the robot to be programmed.” Ibrahim Ahmad said, a 16 year old student of Timberline High School as well as a programmer for Team Tators.

This robot will be in preparation for competitions being held in Southern California come early November. These will be the same challenges as the 2022 Fast React competitions, but the game won’t stay the same for long. Come January 6th of next year, a new game will be announced, and a whole new robot design will be in the works to meet the demands of the new challenge.

Currently, Team Tators has only one immediate obstacle to face in order to compete in the World Championship. The team has to qualify for a Division. In order to qualify for a Division, the team will have to score enough points in a Regional meet to rank in a Division, qualifying them to compete in following Divisions. Team Tators has yet to compete in a Regional meet due to a competition being canceled in September, but come November the team will be ready for competing.

Until then, the team will be working hard in order to hone in their skills as well as their robots’ to prepare for the following months, and the World Championships come March and April. Team Tators has been a fierce competitor for many years, and are ready to deliver for another year filled with testing new problems to overcome as well as ingenuitive new solutions to ingrain into their designs.

“Also, we are always looking for new members!” said Ibrihim Ahmad.

Contact Ibrihim Ahmad (279-321-6304) for more information on how to Join Team Tators, open to anyone willing to challenge themselves and is interested in robotics.