Troy Team 226 Hammerheads Advance in FIRST Competition

HAMMERHEADS ADVANCE TO FINALS

Troy Robotics Team 226 Hammerheads (combined team for Athens and Troy High) competed in Gaylord, Michigan this past weekend, and achieved the Chairman’s Award, “the most prestigious award at FIRST, it honors the team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate and best embodies the purpose and goals of FIRST”.

FIRST stands for “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology,” and is the leading non-profit organization around the world promoting STEM education. “Each year there is a new them, and this year’s theme is ‘Power UP,’ which finds Robotics teams trapped in an 8-bit video game,” said Athens advisor Meredith Perez. “Each 3-team alliance (from different schools) has to work together and has three ways to help defeat the boss: tipping the scale or the alliance’s switch in their favor to earn points, exchanging power cubes for power ups (force, boost and levitate) needed to take their turn facing the game’s ‘Boss,’” according to www.firstinspires.org. The alliance with the highest score at the end of the match, which includes autonomous and teleoperated periods, defeats the boss and wins the game.

The Hammerheads will advance to the next round of competition in Grand Rapids at Forest Hills High School April 5 – 7.

Photo of Hammerheads in Gaylord. Photo credit: Troy School District

Front row kneeling – Akhil Tatineni THS/11, Rithvik Mohanarangan THS/10, Daniel Vijayasegar THS/12, Dikshant Sharma THS/12, Meghana Keeta THS/11

Row 2 – Sarah Xu THS/9, Angela Jiang THS/9, Nidhi Jaison THS/10, Gurish Sharma THS/10, Arpit Agarwal THS/12, Prithik Murthy THS/10, Varun Rajesh THS/9, Christian Emmer Mentor, Chaitanya Vadlamudi THS/10, Alec Minchington AHS/12, Bryan Rich Mentor, Eric Balamucki Mentor, Kamudi Mahajan THS/12, John Tu Coach

Back Row – Meredith Perez Assistant Coach, Lisa Van Coppenolle Mentor, Marcus Perez AHS/10, Rich Van Coppenolle Mentor, Daniel Van Coppenolle AHS/11, Grant Reichenbach Mentor, David Yang Mentor, Mead Hassan AHS/12