Needham Robotics Teams Compete, Rookie Girls Team Advances to State Tournament
On Saturday, January 12, 2013 the Needham High School Robotics Club fielded both boys and girls teams at the Arlington FIRST First Tech Challenge (FTC) Qualifying tournament. Supported by corporate sponsors (including PTC Corporation, Veryst Engineering, Raytheon, Needham Bank, The MathWorks, and Home Depot) and local organizations (including Olin College, the Needham Rotary Club, the Needham High school PTC, and the High school Student Council), the teams were highly competitive and demonstrated capable robot designs.
The day started at 7:30am, when teams arrived at Arlington HS and prepared their robots for hardware and software inspection. Once that was completed, they finished last minute software and hardware changes, and were interviewed by judges about their robots.
The competition had two parts. In the first part teams are randomly paired to form an "alliance" to compete against a different alliance. New alliances are randomly chosen for each match. Each team participated in 7 matches in the seeding rounds. The boys team (Team #4096 "T minus 10") suffered through some mechanical and electrical problems, but still had an exciting day and came away with many ideas for the next Qualifier.
The rookie girls team (Team #5897 "HackHers") went undefeated the entire day until the finals (6 wins and 1 tie), and ended up in 2nd place. For the finals, they selected a team from Sharon (Team #0001 "Unlimited") for their alliance partner. They won their semi-final match, and the supposedly best out of three final match ended up going 6 rounds (3 ties) until they fell to the opposing alliance. To top off the exciting day, the judges also awarded the team the "Motivate" award. Their performance also qualifies them for the State Championship tournament on March 16.
I was particularly proud of the students, not just for their engineering accomplishments, but how they truly exhibited Gracious Professionalism throughout they day, by always staying positive, by congratulating other teams on their successes, and by trying to help teams that were having problems. They represented Needham High School in a positive way, showing true sportsmanship.
Thanks to everyone that came out to support the teams, they certainly got their money's worth with the most exciting final matches anyone can remember! The competitions are free and open to the public. Hopefully we will see you on February 9 at the next Qualifier at Lexington High School, where both teams will compete again, and at the State tournament in Bridgewater, MA on March 16th.
To follow the progress of both teams, go to http://facebook.com/NeedhamRobotics.
