DarBots Win State Championship
By Owen Kinney - Faculty
The Darlington Robotics team competed in the FIRST Tech Challenge State Robotics Championship this Saturday against the top 36 teams in Georgia. The tournament draws from schools across all classifications and areas, public and private. Teams qualified for the State event in a series of regional events from November to January.
The DarBots were crowned FTC Champion for the State of Georgia, receiving the Inspire Award at the event. The Inspire Award honors the team with the highest scores across all areas, including Robot Performance, Engineering and Design, Computer Programming, Connections to STEM Industry, and Community Outreach.
Our team will lead a group of 7 teams representing Georgia at the South Super-Regionals at the University of Georgia. The event brings the top 72 teams from eleven southern states together for a two-day competition and a celebration of STEM innovation. Winners from the four Super-Regional events in the United States will advance to the FTC World Championship. The DarBots competed in the World Championship in 2015.
The FIRST Tech Challenge is a unique sport because teams compete in a series of different two-team alliances, assigned randomly at the start of every tournament. The alliance format encourages teams to maintain a flexible game strategy and to collaborate under very strict time constraints. For each student, the competition format demonstrates the value of effective communication skills, personal accountability and teamwork. The FTC game elements change every year, providing a new series of challenges to teams around the world. Please see the FTC web page to learn more about this year’s game (skip to 5:35 a quick game animation).
Darlington currently has two Robotics classes with a total of 38 students from grades 9-12. Participation in the FIRST Tech Challenge is a major part of the class, and we generally have two teams competing in the competition each year. Students in the class also work on various other projects and are expected to participate in community outreach activities.
