The Irvington Robotics Club FTC teams dominated this past weekend at the 2011 Heritage High School FIRST Tech Challenge Qualifying Tournament, held at Brentwood, CA on Sunday, November 20, 2011. Newly-formed team Terrorbotics (FTC 5348) smashed inaugural Team Bluescreens (4473) by winning 2nd place Alliance Captain, using their petite but powerful robot complete with a mini-street sweeper designed to buffet racquetballs up to a holding chamber to place on the game field mini-crates.
The A Team's robot (5346) , meanwhile took 4th place Alliance as captain along with Bluescreens. Their robot was much smaller, yet was helped by the Boss Bots (524), who had an amazing scissor lift which could lift the mini-crates more than 4 feet tall. Club president Cody Fong, who stayed at Irvington High School to help host a FIRST Lego League (FLL) Qualifier, was amazed at the feat, doubting the success of any scissor lift mechanism from the start. Together in a alliance, Boss Bots and the A-Team shattered Bluescreen's alliance, 134-48. Senior Ani Ramchandran commented, "Team 524 got 92 points in one move. Thats what they did the entire game."
Many club members were initially doubtful of their apparent success. Club vice-president and sophomore Lawrence Hsiung celebrated, "YAAAAAAYYY SECOND WOOOOO! And Jeffrey was all freaking out about if we could make 10th [place]." Many were worried that the club would not do so well at Brentwood, because they had so little time to prepare. Mr. Johns, the club advisor, opened his classroom during the final week before the competition to allow the club to build, program, and test and debug their robots and make final adjustments in what has been popularly called, "Hell Week." However, this year, the FTC teams were not allowed to stay past 9pm to allow members to have a good night's rest and be well prepared and relaxed for the competition.
This competition, however, was different than previous years. The club's newly formed Business Division and Team EndOfLines (4394) stayed at IHS on Sunday to help volunteer and host at the FLL Qualifier. Business Division sold pizzas, nachos, hot dogs, chips, and drinks to hungry FLL teams and parents. Although the fundraiser initially started on a rocky start, they were able to conduct a fairly successful fundraiser. Members from EndOfLines and the district FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) team volunteered in a variety of positions at the tournament, ranging from queue manager to DJ to game announcer.
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The Irvington High School Robotics Club, based in Fremont, CA, teaches local high school students S.T.E.M (science, technology, engineering, and math) principles beyond the required science and math curriculum taught in the school district through the design, construction, and programming of robots using LEGO Mindstorms, Tetrix, and KIPR parts kits and ROBOT-C and KISS-C software. The Club participates in robotics competitions such as the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) in the fall and Botball in the spring.
The Irvington High School Robotics Club, based in Fremont, CA, teaches local high school students S.T.E.M (science, technology, engineering, and math) principles beyond the required science and math curriculum taught in the school district through the design, construction, and programming of robots using LEGO Mindstorms, Tetrix, and KIPR parts kits and ROBOT-C and KISS-C software.
The Club participates in robotics competitions such as the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) in the fall and Botball in the spring. In addition, the Club mentors FIRST LEGO League (FLL) teams from its feeder school, Horner Junior High.
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