In the Spotlight - Robotics

Country Day recently hosted a FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) "League Meet" bringing together teams from the NorCal North-East FTC League. This League organized three Meets this season leading up to the final League Tournament. Teams' cumulative performance across the Meets determined their placement for the Tournament, where winners advanced to the regional NorCal Championships.

Each season features a unique robot game. This year's challenge involved lifting small plastic "samples" from a large metal structure called the "submersible" and scoring them in various ways. Our team’s strategy focused on dunking samples into a tall basket for maximum points.

Eleven teams participated, with each team’s robot competing in six "plays" on the field. Our team, Hoot and Compute, finished the day ranked 5th out of 11—a solid performance for a relatively new team. We were especially proud of our final play, where the robot performed exactly as we hoped and successfully dunked three samples into the highest basket.

Moving forward, we plan to redesign and rebuild parts of the robot and practice driving in preparation for the December 14 Meet at Sonoma Country Day School.

FTC Robotics is offered as a full-year high school elective, with sign-ups available at the start of each school year. For more information, check out the FIRST website.