Written by Steven Su ’30
Edited by Adyant Bhavsar ‘28
Another year passes, and Bellarmine hosts its 11th annual offseason FRC robotics championships, Chezy Champs. With over 40 teams in this year’s competition from all over the US and Mexico, the Chezy Champs competition , often referred to as “The Best in the West”, transformed the Bellarmine campus into a center of energy and engineering. Though the competition is offseason, meaning the world championships already ended, numerous high level teams including Team 4414 HighTide, the reigning world champions, Team 1678 Citrus Circuits, the Milstein Division Winner, Team 2910 Jack in the Bot, the 2025 world champions, the winners of the Newton division, and the 2026 world championship finalists, as well as the hosts, Team 254 The Cheesy Poofs, the Curie Division winners as well as the world record holders.
This year’s game comprised of a 3 vs 3 alliance of industrial grade robots weighing up to 110 pounds with the goal being to score yellow foam balls into a hub with teams taking turns scoring and collecting balls in order to achieve the highest possible score. The game begins with an autonomous routine where the robot is trained to score as many points as possible. After, the three teams’ drivers pick up their controllers to start the teleop period where both alliances try to score as many balls as possible. Each alliance has an alternating period of 30 seconds to score balls if their hub lights up or hoard balls if their hub is not lit. In the final 30 seconds of the game, both teams are allowed to score and collect balls, bringing the match down to the final seconds.
However, before the Chezy Champs competition was started, the newest members of both the FRC program and FTC program were chosen from all applicants, and those members helped the returning members in every step of setting up, running, and cleaning up the competition. Due to the size of the Chezy Champs competition, most members were assigned to volunteer around 10 hours in order to help out with the competition, while members with leadership roles had to work over 20 hours to keep the competition running smoothly. Each member need to volunteer for either a setup or tear down shift as well as an in event shift. These hardworking studentsnot only meticulously set up and tore down an enormous FRC field in the gymnasium but also transformed the Bellarmine campus into a full-fledged competition area:
After Friday’s practice matches as well as qualifications running through Saturday and Sunday, the final seedings came out. Coming in as the 1st seed, the reigning world champions, Team 4414 High Tide, picked the 2nd seed Team 2910 Jack in the Bot. Through 30 minutes of alliance choosing, the captains of each alliance chose 3 other teams from the list of unpicked teams. Team 254, the captain of the third alliance chose Team 581 The Blazing Bulldogs, and Team 694 StuyPulse, as week as a backup team, Team 841 The BioMechs.
The finals comprised of a best of 3 matches with Team 254’s alliance as well as the first seed, HighTide’s Alliance. Though The Cheesy Poofs, The Blazing Bulldogs, and StuyPulse put up a tough fight, the reigning world champions as well as the world championship finalists would not be denied as Team 254’s broken shooter resulted in a horrendous loss of 768 – 653 and 660 – 479.
Despite Team 254’s loss, the annual event was filled with enthusiasm and energy as over 2,000 visitors came to Bellarmine to watch the famous Chezy Champs competition with thousands more watching the livestream on social media.
For more Bellarmine robotics content, follow Team 254 on Instagram and visit their website to stay tuned.