Alton Memorial Jr. High FIRST Technical Challenge (FTC) Robo-Rangers Robotics Team #13512 and the Lady Robo-Rangers Robotics Team #13523 competed at the 2019 Rio Grande Valley FTC Championship on February 15-16, 2019 at the Royal Technologies manufacturing plant. This event is hosted by FIRST-RGV and Royal Technologies who are advocates for STEM programs in the local community in Mission, Texas.
This will be the second year back-to-back that both the AMJH Robo-Rangers FTC #13512 and Lady Robo-Rangers FTC #13523 advance to compete at the Alamo Regional Championship on March 2-3, 2019. Robo-Rangers team #13512 also received the Collins Aerospace Innovate Award which celebrates a team that thinks outside the box. They weren’t the only ones to receive an award, the Lady Robo Rangers also walked away with the Think Award 2nd Place which is awarded to the team that best reflects the journey they experience in the engineering process.
Both teams are off to compete against the top-ranked teams in the state of Texas from several FTC Leagues out of Central Texas (Austin and Alamo Region), Rio Grande Valley Region, and Laredo/Corpus Christi Region. The top 13 teams from the 65 teams competing will then advance to the 2019 FIRST World Championship held in Houston, TX on April 17-20, 2019.
AMJH Robo-Rangers and Lady Robo-Rangers are both second year FTC teams that are part of the organization known as, “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology” (FIRST) which is a world-wide robotics platform that consist of a four-level program for students in K-12. In FTC, teams consist of up to 15 members that are challenged yearly to design, build, program, and operate robots to compete in a head-to-head theme challenge in an alliance format.
Participants call FIRST, “The Hardest Fun You’ll Ever Have.” FTC teams are guided by adults coaches and mentors in which the students develop Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) skills and practice engineering principles like completing an engineering notebook. Students develop the value of hard work, innovation, and cooperative learning. Community outreach like service projects or volunteering is encouraged to promote STEM Awareness in the local community.
For more information on the Award List click on the following links:
FTC Rio Grande Valley Championship Results, Awards, and Advancement