The FIRST Tech Challenge is a robotics competition that originated in the US and has been running in the UK for 5 years. This year OHS entered for the first time as team Cubotics, formed of thirteen Year 10 students and two Year 12 students. In line with the competition’s strapline, ‘More than Robots’, the team set about raising funds, designing branding and creating an online portfolio whilst waiting for the kit to make it through customs from the US!
February to April saw the main build take place and get the robot to a state that it could be tested on a game field during a scrimmage. Intensive work then followed to adapt the design to better suit the game field and the competition challenges. We arrived at the finals in Cambridge, one of 8 new teams from a field of 40, a little nervous as to how we would perform, especially as every match we would be paired with an experienced team to compete against two other competitors and we didn’t want to let the side down! With 5 minutes to go until the first match our programmers managed to complete the autonomous code – using a webcam, our robot had to recognise one of 3 images and navigate to the relevant location in the game field.
The competition was excellent! It was so exciting and rewarding to see our robot successfully complete the challenges. We saw first-hand one of FIRST’s values in action, gracious professionalism, as potential competitors were only too happy to offer advice and support throughout the day. We came away having scored more highly than many returning teams, and won an award for a social media post demonstrating the progress our robot had made from its initial design. Although the team can’t compete next year as the finals clash with exams, they are excited at the prospect of mentoring a new team.
