“One point,” I muttered. My voice was lost in a sea of commotion, but I heard myself loud and clear. I had failed myself and my team, and in that moment, nothing else mattered.

I had travelled with my robotics team, Team Unlimited, to Scranton, Pennsylvania, to compete with the best 72 teams from the Northeastern United States. As the robot battles began, I felt a buzzing optimism about Team Unlimited’s chances of qualification for the World Championship. As results for each of the five competition rounds were announced, the robot’s performance was inconsistent. I was losing hope; my dreams of glorious success were being crushed before my very eyes, and I felt powerless to stop it. Upon the tournament’s end, the final placements were displayed; Team Unlimited had come one ranking point away from heading to the World Championships. Stunned, I walked from the University of Scranton gymnasium all the way to the parking lot in too much in pain to think “I tried my best” or “I’ll have another chance next year.” I had come within arm’s reach of victory, and fate had decided to snatch it away.

Returning to robotics after the off-season was a struggle. Many senior members had left, leaving myself and a few other juniors to attempt leading Team Unlimited for the first time. Memories of Scranton lingered over my head as I examined prospective members and devised new community outreach efforts for the upcoming season.  Before the formal recruitment process of new team members, I sat down and planned the team’s goals for the season. However much I tried, I could not settle on seasonal goals for competitions. I was scared of failing to meet goals that I myself had set, reasoning that it was best to not set myself and Team Unlimited up for disappointment. I was allowing my own role in the team’s failure at Scranton Super Regionals cloud my judgment. Four months after the event, Team Unlimited had never seemed so far away from the World Championship.

It is important to know that I do not consider myself to be particularly anxious. I attempt to let go of my fears and worries as soon as I think of them, as they cloud my judgment and detract from my ability to focus. When, on occasion, I feel the pressures of failures past and obstacles present, I remind myself of a certain scene from Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, the third installment in his Batman-focused trilogy. As Batman attempts to extricate himself from the underground prison he is kept in, he continually tries and fails to scale the side of the cave wall; only by freeing himself of a tether is he able to finally scale the wall, return to Gotham, and save the world. I recalled this scene when planning out Team Unlimited’s season. Throughout the following season, in times of crisis, I reminded myself of Batman’s struggles; just as he shed the weight of the tether, I dropped my fear of failure and accepted my new senior role on the team.

It has been 1 year, 6 months, and 16 days since that fateful chilly afternoon in Scranton. I occasionally wonder what would have happened to my journey on Team Unlimited had we qualified for the World Championships that day. I always come to the same understanding: it doesn’t really matter. Without its presence in the timeline of my robotics career, I would not have learned to dust off my boots and let go of the tether holding me back from achieving my potential as a leader and member of Team Unlimited. It seems that fate has given me a second chance with robotics; if not to make it to the World Championship, then to make it the farthest that I can.