Schools

International School Robotics Team Qualifies for National Competition

International School robotics team needs to raise $6,000 in the next two weeks for travel and entry fees to the FIRST Championships in St. Louis.

's Titan Robotics Club qualified last week to compete nationally in the FIRST Championships in St. Louis.

The Titans and their alliance partners, Tahoma Senior High School and Camas, Washougal, Hockinson & Hayes Freedom High Schools all won the FIRST Robotics Cascade Regional final matches on March 24, 2012, according to a press release from International School's team.

Now the Titans hope to raise $6,000 in order to head to the competition, which is April 26-28.

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FIRST (which stands for "For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology") is a national program that aims to spark interest in science and technology and team-building skills, and one of its high profile programs is the local, regional and national robotics competition for 9-12 grades.

This year's FIRST Robotics Regional was called the "Rebound Rumble," with a basketball-inspired taskss. The competition included 3-point baskets, roaring fans, and dancing mascots, the Titan team reported.

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According to FIRST Washington, the teams were grouped in three-team alliances, which would go head to head with another alliance to score as many basketballs into their hoops as they can during a 2 minute and 15 second match. The higher the hoop, the more points the alliance would receive.

Robots were designed to shoot and defend baskets, rebound balls and balance on seesaw bridges at the center of the court, and the International School team robot scored in all aspects of the competition, according to the press release.

“I am so proud of this team,” said Amy McIvor, Lead Mentor, in a prepared statement. “The students worked really hard to get us ready for regionals. We are a small team, so everyone put in long hours to build and program the robot.”

The teams programmed commands into their robots and also controlled robots with human motions, tracked by the Kinect from Microsoft, the team said. 

"Our robot performed really well; the mechanical and software teams did great. This was our first time truly operating the real robot, as opposed to the practice one, so Paul (robot mechanism operator) and I just had to cram in as much practice during competition as possible."” said International School robot driver, Da-Hee Im.

During the two-day simultaneous Cascade and Olympic Regionals last weekend, 96 robotics teams from Washington, Oregon, California, Mexico and Turkey competed in qualifying rounds.

Other Bellevue teams included, Bellevue High, Interlake High, International, Newport High and Sammamish High. Four of the five Bellevue teams advanced to the regional playoff matches.

How to help the Titan Robotics Club

The Cascade Regional victory qualifies International School’s team for the 2012 FIRST Robotics Championships in St. Louis, Missouri April 26-28. The next challenge for the team is to raise $6,000 in the next two weeks to pay for the Championship entry fee and raise additional funds to support students who are not able to afford the travel expenses. If you are interested in learning more, contact amy@titanrobotics.net .


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