Saturday saw 25 teams descend on Glenfield College to participate in the first Gateway Scrimmage to be held in New Zealand. This was the first opportunity for many teams to play on the field, and for some teams the first time they had even encountered the balls and barrels in real life. It was also the first time that AURA volunteers helped run an official scrimmage, with several team members present, running tournament software, scoring matches, and resetting fields along with volunteers from Massey University (MESS). It was great to see teams travel from Katikati and Tauranga to compete in the scrimmage as well!
There was some pretty fierce competition among the top teams, with AURA mentored team 2915A (Lynfield College) coming out on top at the end of qualification rounds, followed closely by 2921 (Free Range/Home School), 2915C (Lynfield College), and another AURA mentored team 2919 (K-Force/Kristin School). 16 of the teams moved on to compete in the elimination bracket, which featured 2921 and 2915A as the top alliance. These two teams have competed at the World Champs a combined five times over the last three seasons, winning between them Programming Skills, the Create Award, Division Finalist, Division Champion, and even World Champion. The quality of the competition was very high, and some high scores were achieved, with the highest score of 33-23 between 2915A/2921 and 2919/2941 (Oats VEXMen). It was a very common sight to see both doublers scored strategically, although the negator barrels were mostly left unused. Different strategies were used in terms of opening the gate, with a mixture of gate-down and gate-up play. Unfortunately, being quite early in the season, most teams did not have an autonomous but 2915A took the lead with a 3-point autonomous from the isolation zone. It was a great day overall, and well done to all the teams that participated!
In the lead up to the World Cup, which is being held in Auckland in October, teams will continue to prepare and compete on an almost weekly basis with informal scrimmages each week, and formal Kiwibots scrimmages each month. With the new World Championship qualification rules, the competition for world champs spots will definitely be tougher as well, with more teams than ever vying for less available qualifications. Good luck to all teams!