Schools
Utica Community Schools robotics team earns prestigious Chairman's Award at regional FIRST tournament
Award recognizes teams for their outreach efforts and automatically qualifies teams to attend the next highest competition
Two Utica Community Schools robotics team engineered some of the top regional awards at a regional tournament, including the event’s most prestigious award
The two FIRST teams - ThunderChickens (Team 217) and Crevolution (Team 2851) - participated in the FIM Troy District Event this past weekend at Troy Athens High School.
After qualification matches, The ThunderChickens were ranked 20, and Crevolution was ranked 30. The ThunderChickens also took home the most prestigious award in FIRST: The Chairman’s Award.
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The competition consisted of 41 teams, 82 qualification matches to determine rankings, alliance selections and elimination matches, and awards.
During alliance selection, the ThunderChickens were invited to join the third alliance as a second bot. The alliance captain was The Fighting Pi (Team 1718), and the third robot of the alliance was The Village Bulldogs (team 3096).
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Crevolution was enlisted to join the sixth alliance as the third robot by the Hammerheads (Team 226) and Adambots (Team 245).
In the elimination matches, the teams went head-to-head. The sixth alliance defeated the third 254 to 235, and then the third alliance won the second quarterfinal match 305 to 263. Ultimately, the third alliance moved on to semifinals after winning the third quarterfinal match 390 to 263.
The third alliance's reign ended quickly after losing two of the three matches during the semifinals to the alliance that eventually won the entire competition.
After the finals matches, awards were passed out. FIRST recognizes teams through various awards that highlight teams interesting engineering designs, creativity, spirit, outreach, and more. Winning awards at competitions adds qualifying points, which are given to teams to allow them to move on to different competitions.
The Chairman’s Award given to the Thunderchickens recognizes teams for their outreach efforts, and automatically qualifies teams to attend the next highest competition. The ThunderChickens already qualified for the Michigan State Championship in Saginaw because they won the award.
The ThunderChickens and Crevolution will both be competing at the FIRST in Michigan Marysville District Competition this weekend.
For more information on competition, live streams, and rankings, check out thebluealliance.com.
School District Source - Utica Community Schools
Dr. Christine Johns, Superintendent of Schools
