On Saturday, Jan. 28, Quad City area robotics teams competed at the QC Iowa FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge) League Championship at Central DeWitt High School. All day, students participated in robot matches, battled each other in different rounds, presented their engineering notebook to judges, and got interviewed about their design processes and teamwork.

A total of 8 teams from this specific event advanced to the next level: the QC Iowa FTC Super Qualifier – Eastern Iowa. This event will take place on Feb. 11 at Pleasant Valley High School. From Pleasant Valley High School, Team 6093 Deviation From the Norm and Team 7196 Everything That’s Radical attended. Both of these teams qualified for the next level.

Team Deviation From the Norm, the 6th team to qualify, are proceeding as a recipient of the Think Award. This judged honor is awarded to the team that best reflects on the building process of their robot. This award is based on the quality of a team’s Engineering Notebook and the extent of the quality of documentation of the team’s engineering design process and holistic experience. The Engineering Notebook also includes diagrams and details which demonstrate the team’s understanding of the design process.

“The season is going really well. Our robot is capable of doing all the tasks on the field. We just need to refine the individual components,” commented Vishwajit Subramaniam, junior. “At the Super Qualifier, we hope to win all of our qualification matches and advance to the state championship.”

Team Everything That’s Radical, the 8th team to qualify, received the Connect Award. The Connect Award focuses on the amount of involvement an FTC team has with the local STEM community. It is presented to a team which develops STEM interests and goals while maximizing opportunities to promote these growing fields.
“I feel like so far the season has gone pretty well. At the beginning, we had trouble with our storing and throwing mechanism, but as the season progressed, and through a lot of team brainstorming, we’ve been able to improve our robot from just throwing to throwing and capping,” acknowledged Trinity Shi, junior. “As for moving forward, we have our eyes set on ultimately making it to Worlds.”