Seven Fairfax High School (FHS) students making up the TSA Robotics team won the Mini-Urban Challenge on Saturday in Florida. Led by senior and lead programmer Thomas Dabney, students Jack Rizek, Calvin Rizek, William Chang, Phillip Simpson, Paul Huravitch and Francis Winn took first place beating out nine other schools from across the country.
The 6th annual Mini-Urban Challenge is a national competition that challenges high school students to design and operate a robotic automobile using a Lego Mindstorms kit. Students design and assemble a robot capable of going distances accurately based on student-written programs and signals received from color and light sensors. The car must maneuver through a model city on a painted mat. The students have 45 minutes to program the robot to make seven stops in assigned locations during the competition time. The car must follow the colored lines and traffic rules and park on designated spots. The students must successfully navigate through the mini-urban challenge for 70 percent of their score. The rest of the 30 percent of the team score is based on an oral presentation made by team members.
The students are led throughout the school year by FHS teacher and Robotics Club leader Emre Ege, but needed to conduct themselves independently during the challenge. "It is the sheer success of our students which comes with excessive preparedness and planning," said Ege.
Find out what's happening in Fairfax Cityfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Students prepared for the challenge throughout the school year, in the club and in the classroom. Mr. Ege teaches in the Technology and Engineering department at FHS and many of his club members are in his Development Engineering Course.
"This particular robotics studies involve learning programming languages and assembling a navigational robot according to specifications," said Ege. "It is a lot of fun for creative, resourceful, productive and engineer-minded students."
Find out what's happening in Fairfax Cityfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
The team first won the D.C. regional challenge in March, beating out schools from around Fairfax County and the D.C. metro area. "We are proud of their accomplishments and sure that this is only a beginning of their life-long achievements," said Ege.
The challenge is sponsored by The Doolittle Institute, a non-profit based in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, the Air Force Research Lab and John Deere.
For more information about the challenge, please see here.
