There’s an age-long rivalry between The Chickadees and Team Tators. Although most people think Chickadees are a kind of bird, and Tators are a kind of potato, these are well-known robotics teams in the Boise area. The Chickadees are a local all-girls robotics team, and the Tators are mostly kids who went to the big-brain school, TVMSC.

We Tators make fun of them in private… and in public. Subjectively, the Chickadees robot is objectively worse than ours. Our robot can climb metal monkey bars, and we qualified for the final competition in Houston, Texas, which is a pretty big deal. Although the Tators (not including me) are kind of egotistical, some might say that we’re as nutty as a fruitcake. For example, one of my robotics mentors is British, and he tells people to “suck eggs” (it’s a British expression).

In comparison, at our Nampa tournament, the Chickadee’s robot fell over, and it was kind of funny. Just like my brain cells, their robot kind of moves around and dies every so often. We became the first seed robot out of 28 other robots, whereas the Chickadees were… trying their best.

Maia Rehman, a Boise High student on the Chickadees, offered to carpool me to the competition, which is considered fraternizing with the enemy. She explained that being on Team Tators is bad for one’s mental and physical health. In Team Tators, we work in a guy’s garage, just like Steve Jobs. One student works in the garage so much that she receives a lofty 5 hours of sleep almost every day. Compared to other students, who get about 2-4 hours of sleep on some nights, she’s thriving. Maia states that the students are so crackers about winning competitions that robotics is a stressful full-time job for us (we don’t even get paid). Chill Chickadee Sophia Mocuta said, “I like our team because we have fun even though we suck [eggs].”

Unlike the Chickadee’s, the members on Team Tators have a lack of sportsmanship. One of the leaders of the Tators, Eddie Ormseth, spoke shamelessly, “I’m going to be super respectful to everyone today, except for the Chickadee’s. Hahaha”. Tator Nathan scoffed and said, “Their wires were sparking,” and Ethan said, “I was supposed to be looking for good robots, but I’d been looking for hot girls the entire time”.