FTC team 389 attended their second qualifier on February 6th, held at River Hill High school in Clarksville MD. They competed in this year’s FTC game “RES-Q” (a play on the word Rescue) in which the field has two “mountains” in opposing corners containing three scoring areas: low, middle, and high. During the match, alliances of two compete to clear debris from the field, rescue zip liners (flipping levers along the sides of the mountain), and hanging from the top bar. Only during the last thirty seconds are teams allowed to hang from the top bar, which grants you 80 points.
During most of the qualification matches, FTC 389’s robot was able to hang from the top bar and get at least two of the tree zip liners. Unfortunately their robot was plagued with technical difficulties throughout most of the matches. Even with those issues the team ended up ranked 5th place out of the 30 participating teams at the end of qualifications. This allowed them to be their own alliance captain and select the teams they felt granted them the highest chance at making it through the elimination matches. The alliance made it through quarter finals but ultimately was eliminated during semi-finals.
Even though the team was knocked out of the competition, they did not go home empty handed. All throughout the day, the judges talked to them about their “Stinger” and “egg”. The stinger is the lift mechanism used to pull the robot up to the top of the mountain while the egg (or cam) was designed to help the robot get climb and advance toward the top of the mountain. In the end it was these two things that got them the Rockwell Collins Innovate Award. This award grants them a spot at the state championship in Bethesda, MD.
We are extremely proud of FTC 389 and everything they have accomplished this season. We will be cheering for them while they compete at the state championship on Sunday February 21st. Go Bees!