On Wednesday, March 9th through Friday, March 11th, the Kinkaid Robotics FTC team competed in the South Super-Regional tournament held in San Antonio, Texas. Also participating in this tournament were 71 other schools, home-school groups and neighborhood teams from the 12 southern states.
The team finished the tournament with a 3-3 record. In addition to the on-field performance, the teams made a presentation to the event judges. The team was assessed on their outreach, their robot's design and other factors. Out of the 72 teams, the Kinkaid team earned 2nd place for the Rockwell Collin Innovate Award. This ranking earned the team an invitation to the FTC World Championship
The students who were involved at this tournament were:
Daniel King '19
Julian Meyers '19
Jamie Moseley '18
Nikita Munsif '20
Christos Papandreou '18
Paul Thompson '18
Joseph Wagnon '19
Others who worked and provided support leading up to this tournament include Charlie Finch '19 and John Churay '16.
The FTC World Championship will held in St. Louis from April 27th - April 30th. At this tournament, the team will be competing against the best 127 other schools and home school and neighborhood groups from the four regions across the US plus teams from 15 countries.
About the Rockwell Collins Innovate Award:
The Rockwell Collins Innovate Award celebrates a Team that not only thinks outside the box, but also has the ingenuity and inventiveness to make their designs come to life. This judged award is given to the Team that has the most innovative and creative Robot design solution to any or all specific field elements or components in the FTC game. Elements of this award include elegant design, robustness and ‘out of the box’ thinking related to design. This award may address the design of the whole Robot or of a sub-assembly attached to the Robot. The creative component must work consistently, but a Robot does not have to work all the time during matches to be considered for this award. The Team’s Engineering Notebook should be marked with journal entries to show the design of the component(s) and the Team’s Robot in order to be eligible for this award, and entries should describe succinctly how the Team arrived at that solution.
Required criteria for the Rockwell Collins Innovate Award:
- Team must demonstrate respect and Gracious Professionalism towards everyone they encounter at an FTC event.
- Team must submit an Engineering Notebook with an Engineering Section that documents the design process and how the Team arrived at their design solution.
- Robot or Robot sub-assembly must be elegant and unique in its design.
- Creative component must be stable, robust, and work reliably.
- Robot design is efficient and consistent with Team plan and strategy.