Front row from left, Alpha Robot MAGIC, Beta Robot, Jaryn Newman (Alpha), Jessie Cook (Alpha), Olivia Decroix (Beta), Adriana Cali (Beta), Shawn Newman (Beta), Kent Teshima (Beta), Summer Bronson (Alpha), Alex Proicou (Beta) Tazler Smith (Alpha), Joseph Thompson (Alpha), Erin Scott (Alpha) Homer Danielson (Alpha), Aidan Henson (Alpha), Kevin Roybal (Beta), Adam Scott (Alpha) and Michael Chigaev (Beta). Courtesy photo
The weekend of Jan. 17 was an important event for both Los Alamos FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge) teams. A qualifying event in Albuquerque offered an opportunity for the original Alpha Hawks to practice and opened the door for the newer team, the Beta Hawks to rise at the upcoming Regional Competition in Flagstaff, Ariz.
Because of the growing interest in FTC in Los Alamos, a second team was formed. However, these “Beta Hawks” had only a small amount of time to prepare for their first competition. They worked very hard and proved their determination with style.
The rookies won the PTC Design Award, which is recognition for creativity in meeting the challenge of the competition. The Betas were chosen to be in a highly ranked alliance, and together they won the First Place Alliance, which landed them a spot in the Regional Competition in Flagstaff with flying colors!
You can imagine how excited both teams were. Beta team member Michael Chigaev says about the day’s events, “I was nervous, I really wanted my team to win, but I thought we wouldn’t, given that this was our first competition, yet, we won!”
Another Beta Hawk, Olivia DeCroix expressed, “I do not know about the rest of the team but it was a mixture of feelings like happiness, nervousness and relief. But I really enjoyed the competition and being able to see the team’s hard work paying off.”
My team, the Alpha Hawks was unsuccessful in the beginning matches and did not earn our own spot in the finals. Like the Betas, we were chosen by another highly ranked team. This was due to a stroke of luck, everything that had gone wrong in the first matches spun in our direction, and we proceeded to win the second place alliance pick.
After the ups and downs of the day, we went on to win the second place Inspire Award and the third place Think Award, which I am personally very proud of, as it recognizes the hard work going in to the engineering notebook. (Trust me, trying to make the mechanics on the team sit down and write is harder than herding cats, but it can be done.)
We also took home the Control Award, which acknowledges our robot’s autonomous mode and the patience needed to program the sensors added to our robot, and, of course, how we used sensors to efficiently complete the challenge.
As it all was very exciting, we also can note that we were on Channel 7 news! Many of us were interviewed, and the segment aired Saturday evening and Sunday morning.
We are all very excited for the Regional Championships taking place in Flagstaff, Arizona next month. We hope the Alphas can rely less on Murphy’s good grace and more on our abilities, so we too can make a spiffing splash like our Beta team, whom we hope will continue to soar. On that note, I take my leave. Thank you for reading!
Courtesy photo
Courtesy photo