(New Hartford, NY – Jan. 2015) The RoboSpartans FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) robotics team arrived home from the Capital District FTC “Cascade Effect” Qualifier at The Albany Academies on Saturday Jan. 17 with the league’s top prize, the Inspire Award. The Inspire Award is given to the team that truly embodies the “challenge” of the FTC robotics program. The winner is an inspiration to other teams, acting with Gracious Professionalism, both on and off the playing field. The fifth-season, year-round team was lauded for their fast moving robot, highly organized Engineering Notebook and global outreach through their creation of the FTC TEC Network. The team maintains a Google Community group of over 90 teams from 27 States and 5 countries to promote peer-to-peer learning and robotics camaraderie.
In FTC, teams play in paired alliances on a 12 foot by 12 foot field. This season’s Cascade Effect field contains baseball and golf ball-size whiffle balls used to score points in rolling and stationary goals of varying heights. Teams preprogram their robots for a 20 second autonomous run before picking up game controllers test their driving skills while negotiating through the maze of debris and scoring elements.
The RoboSpartans were undefeated in their 5 qualifying matches with their robot named “Leonidas”. They finished the day as part of a semi-final alliance of teams that included friends and 2nd Place Inspire Award winners, Error404 from Central Square and Motivate Award winners the MohonBots from Mohonasen High School in Schenectady.
Saturday’s event was the last official tournament of the season for the RoboSpartans before they travel to the FTC East Super Regional Championship at the University of Scranton, March 19-21. The Super Regional features the top 72 FIRST Tech Challenge teams from Maine to Virginia. Twenty-six of those teams will be invited to the FTC World Championship in St. Louis in April. The RoboSpartans are hoping to make a return trip to St. Louis where they placed 4th in the World in 2013.
The RoboSpartans team includes Gwyneth LaMarche, Daniel Michaels, Benjamin Marks and Ryan Payne of New Hartford, and Aidan Uvanni of Deerfield and Timothy Ha of Utica. The team operates under their fiscal agent and supporter, the Mohawk Valley Applied Technology Corporation of Utica.
The team co-hosts “Breadsticks and Bots,” a Dinner and Robot Demonstration Fundraiser with the Basementalists #7094 at the New Hartford American Legion on Saturday Jan. 31 from 4 to 8 p.m. For information and tickets to the New Hartford event or to help support the RoboSpartans, contact: RoboSpartans4082@gmail.com.