VIEW PHOTOS FROM THE EVENT!
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Summary and results courtesy of Marc Leinberger:
The Delta Robot Rumble held at the Cultural Center on Monday and Tuesday was a smashing success. In some cases literally! Those robots were big and tough – when they collide with each other and objects on the playing field interesting things happen. This was the regional qualifier for the FIRST Tech Challenge state championship in Fairbanks. The teams showed they had raised the level of high school students’ understanding of robotics and engineering and teamwork in the region significantly yet again. A big thanks goes out to all of the coaches, chaperones, judges and officials for their dedication, “downloading” technical and teamwork skills to each student and encouragement.
A total of 9 high school robotics teams competed from Kwethluk (3), Newtok (2), Toksook Bay (2), Mekoryuk (1) and RANSEP (1). The BRHS/RANSEP (Rural Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program) team is composed of students from BRHS, Napaskiak, BABS and Oscarville.
Awards were earned by teams in several categories:
Inspire Award – This is the top award at the competition and is given to the best all around team for Gracious Professionalism on and off the field, robot design and innovation, impressive engineering notebook, community outreach, consistently high robot performance on the playing field, and interview with a panel of judges. This year’s Inspire Award goes to BRHS/RANSEP “Team W.A.T.T.”. As the Inspire Award-winning team, a banner will be raised in each school which had members on the team for a month and then it will be raised permanently at BRHS, which is the host school for LKSD’s RANSEP students.
Inspire Award Runner Up – Kwethluk “5 Star Rockers”
Championship Alliance – After several close matches, the alliance of RANSEP “Team W.A.T.T.” and Newtok “Fender Bender” won the overall championship on the playing field.
Finalist Alliance – The alliance of Toksook “Team Ursula” and Kwethluk “Team 3497” pushed other teams and their robots to their limits.
Think Award – This award is given to the team that best documents its engineering and robot design process in the engineering notebook. This year’s Think Award goes to Mekoryuk “Team Killer Whales”.
Connect Award – This award goes to the team that most connected with their community and has supporting documentation. The team helps their community understand what FIRST and FIRST Tech Challenge are, what the team is doing during the season and had an effective fundraising plan. This year’s Connect Award goes to Kwethluk “5 Star Rockers”. The team fundraiser included taking all of the school student pictures themselves and marketing sales to every community member.
Rockwell Collins Innovate Award – This award goes to the team that developed an elegant and unique robot or sub-assembly. The design was demonstrated to work reliably, and the team submitted an engineering notebook. The Rockwell Collins Innovate Award goes to Kwethluk “Robo King and Queens” for their robot’s ability to gather racketballs and place them into baskets during matches.
PTC Design Award – This award goes to the team that submits an engineering notebook with detailed robot design drawings, the design is both aesthetic and functional = differentiates itself from others, and showed a well thought out basis for the design. This year’s PTC Design Award goes to Toksook Bay “Team Ursula” for their amazing forklift manipulator.
Motivate Award – This award goes to the team that consistently demonstrates team spirit that is consistent, enthusiastic – and is evident in their community outreach. Every aspect of team function worked effectively in the Pit Area, during team intervriews, and throughout the matches. This year’s Motivate Award goes to Kwethluk “Underdogs”.
Perseverance Award – This award goes to the team that really had to put forth maximum effort into the competition and demonstrated grace under pressure. This year’s Perseverance Award goes to Newtok “Little Robascals”, which was a one-man team all on his own for the entire competition.
Four teams will be representing Southwest Alaska at the Alaska High School Robotics Championships on March 2-3 on the UAF campus in Fairbanks:
BRHS/RANSEP “Team W.A.T.T.”
Kwethluk “5 Star Rockers”
Mekoryuk “Killer Whales”
Newtok “Fender Bender”
Good luck teams and great work one and all!