Robotics Competition Takes Over City High
February 29, 2016
On Saturday, over 25 different robotics teams from the region gathered in City High’s gyms for the FTC Robotics State Qualifying Competition. FTC, or FIRST Tech Challenge, aims to give students the opportunity to gain experience that can affect their future, and to give students real-world application of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.
For the competition, students had to design, build, program, and run their robots. The robots have to do a variety of tasks on the field, but then off the field you have to work on your robot and make sure everything’s ready. The robots have to climb up the “mountain,” they have to get around debris, and place the debris into buckets. They can hang from the top of the “mountain,” and they can knock down other robots climbing the “mountain.”
“It seems to be going really smoothly. It’s really exciting to see some of the competitors who have been just starting to learn and engage on these things.” Joe Bargo, one of the team’s coaches said. “But it looks like some of these guys have been actively working on problems kind of like the Little Hawks as well.”
Raw Bacon Robotics made it into the final round of the competition, but did not make it to the state competition. The final results are still pending.
The Raw Bacon Robotics team members are enthusiastic about the FTC and City High robotics. Bryton Harper ‘19 thinks it’s a good opportunity for students.
“[The competition] is really exciting. It gets people to do more with engineering,” Harper said.
