![Walking through the tunnel created by the cheerleaders and Celebrities, senior Frances Tran smiles as the soccer team is sent off during DEN for their playoff game against Rouse tonight. Tran said the wins against Smithson Valley and Alamo Heights gave the team a morale boost to take on the Raiders tonight. “I know we were not 100% confident in those games,” Tran said. “But, Rouse is a big opponent for sure. We’re definitely going into tonight with a lot of morale [because of the previous wins].”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/frances-tran.jpg)
![Holding a bucket of materials in one hand and a roll of tape in another, anatomy and biology teacher Tyler Terry prepares for a lab. Terry said his proudest moments are when his students are happy to see him. “When I take my wife to a football game or something and a bunch of students want to say hi to me or they like to smile and wave and it just makes me feel good that the students are really kind and supportive of me,” Terry said. “[I’m also] proud when I see students perform really well in their extracurriculars because I can see how hard they’re working in my classes, [so] when I see that they’re also working so hard in other things. Like they’re winning band competitions or they’re getting awards for their theater productions, or I see them put on their choir shows, that’s like, wow, you guys are incredible.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Rags-6.png)
![Catching a ball, junior Alivia Robinson plays at the Cedar Park vs Glenn game. Having played since she was 5 years old, she is dedicated to softball and has committed to UTPB for softball. “When I got my offer it took me a very long time to decide where,” Robinson said. “Softball has always been my dream for college, and UTPB is my fit. When [I committed] I knew I was going to be loved and supported.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Lilly-Adams-3.13aliviaedit-901.jpg)
![Holding her dog, Nova, senior Ariana Balakrishnan poses for her senior pictures while Nova wears a bandana with her college decision. Balakrishnan applied to 18 colleges in total, but she decided on Columbia in the end. “Right before I clicked the button to open Columbia’s letter, I literally looked at the camera and go ‘This is just gonna really suck because I wanted it so bad,’ and I clicked it and all of a sudden you hear trumpets,” Balakrishnan said. “There’s a video that plays when you open it and I actually didn’t watch the video, I just watched the screen go black, because every day of December before ED [Early Decision] I would go on YouTube and watch the acceptance video to manifest it, so immediately when the screen went black, I started screaming and jumping up and down. And my parents in the video are like ‘What are you doing, where’s the letter,’ and I was just screaming ‘I got in, I got in.” I just started crying, and it just felt like everything in the world came together.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/ariana-2-300x217.jpg)
Competitors rushing all around, robots whirring across the floor, chaos unfolding as the CPHS FTC Robotics Team prepare to stand their ground against the judges of the Cedar Ridge Regional Robotics Competition.
The CPHS FTC Robotics Teams traveled to Round Rock to compete in their UIL Regionals competition on Feb. 26.
“It was a lot of fun,” Robotics sponsor Amy Lovelace said. “It was just in Cedar Ridge, so it was close. But it was fun, they did judging in the morning and they all did very well. It was fun to compete with all the teams in the Austin area.”
FTC Robotics throughout the year had been competing against the same teams throughout the state and district, eventually growing closer to their competitors and getting to know their methods and habits to prepare for the grand showdown at regionals.
“One nice thing about this actually about robotics is that you get to know a lot of the other teams in the area,” Lovelace said. “It’s kind of nice to be able to compete with the other teams from the other leagues in Austin.”
Senior Arav Neroth has been a part of the FTC Robotics team for two years and said he was nervous about the competition.
“I definitely feel we could have performed better,” Neroth said. “We had a lot of unlucky matchups, and we almost didn’t make it. Our advancement was due to winning an award.”
Although Neroth was uncertain about the bot’s performance, the team’s new bot was equipped with a variety of new features. These features include a custom designed and 3D printed, spring loaded paper airplane shooter, and a new line of code to assist the bot’s performance and overall allow the bot to run smoother than ever.
“Our paper airplanes are getting more consistent,” Lovelace said. “They’re getting at telling our motor to toggle driver mode where you can make the mosaics on the board. It’s a process and you get better each time.”
Lovelace said that this is the first time in history that Cedar Park has had two teams make it to regionals, and both teams managed to pull through and made it to the playoffs. The stats given by Lovelace show that only the top 20% of teams make it to regionals, 10% make it to state and only 1% manage to make it to worlds. Unfortunately, both teams didn’t quite conquer the semi finals in their respective divisions, however team 14361 will continue to compete in both UIL State and FTC State near the end of March in Belton, Texas.
“It’s really, really competitive to get that far in Texas,” Lovelace said. “They’ve done really well just to even get to regionals. So that’s amazing.”
