FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge) Nov. 3, 2018  “Rover Ruckus”

This past weekend was The FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge) first league robotics competition at Capital High School School.  The Olympia School District (OSD) had a great showing with six teams participating in this competitive event. At the end of the day, Olympia High School’s  team, 8548, “ the BarBEARians” finished in first place, North Thurston’s  Electric Sheep, 7742 placed second and Capital High school’s team 9876, “The Countdown” finished third. The Olympia School District had a great showing with three teams finishing in the top five spots.  It should be noted that the Olympia School District fielded six teams out of the total 14 teams in the FTC South Sound Lovelace league. The November 3, competition was a great showing for The Olympia School District.

This year’s challenge, “Rover Ruckus,” has robots landing on Mars by detaching and descending from the Mars Lander.  After the robots have landed on the Mars surface, they search for and pick up gold and silver minerals which need to placed into the correct storage areas on the Mars Lander.   There are two craters in which robots can find gold and silver, provided these robots can traverse the steep crater walls. During the endgame (the last 30 seconds of the match) robots latch back to on to the Mars Lander, raise themselves up and prepare for take off. So, between placing gold and silver minerals in the correct storage areas and connecting themselves onto the Lander and raising themselves up, there is a lot of action going on in these matches.

At both Capital and Olympia high schools, teams of students have designed, built  and programed a robot to detach and descend from the Mars Lander and place gold and/or silver minerals in the lander. Each match last 2 ½  actions packed minutes.. But that’s not all! Students will also give a ten minute presentation about their robot, and team activities to a panel of judges and turn in an engineering journal that includes their robot evolution, CAD designs, programming, outreach and more.  Teams that compete well, present to the judges well and have a well written engineering journal will move on to the Washington State Competition in February.

Check out this video to learn more about “Rover Ruckus!”  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=outjVX6ZcU4

On  Dec. 1, the Olympia School District robotics teams return and compete in their second league FTC competition at Capital High School.  Competition will be fierce and it will be fun. If you would like to see these exciting robots “In action!!!” Matches start at 11:00 in the Capital High School Commons.

ORF makes their way to the PNW FRC Championship in Portland, OR!

After a lot of drama on the first day of the Glacier Peak FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), The Olympia Robotics Federation (ORF)  dug themselves into a hole with four losses. But….. ORF roared back to win the next five matches in a row and went 1 for 2 on Sunday and ended up in 13th (out of 36 teams) place at the end of qualifying matches. Due to the selection of teams ahead of us in the Alliance selection process, ORF became the captain of the eighth seeded alliance for the quarter-finals. Unfortunately, this set the team up to play the number one alliance in the first match and ORF was knocked out at that point. However, the team made an extraordinary comeback and qualified for the PNW championships at Portland, which will be held over Spring break!

Robotics competitions are not just about robotics.  There are many awards that teams win and ORF won the Entrepreneurship Award at Glacier Peak.   Also, one of ORF’s candidates CHS’s Loren Lyttle, is a finalist for the Dean’s list and one of ORF’s menors, Richard Corn, is a finalist for the Woody Flowers awards. So, ORF received substantial recognition for their efforts!

Go ORF!!!

Two OSD teams earn their way to the the Washington State FTC Championship on Feb. 11, 2018

On Dec. 16, 2017, the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) South Sound Inter-District Championship was held at Baker Middle School in Tacoma, WA.  The Olympia School District (OSD) fielded eight competitive teams out of 36 teams from around the South Sound.  Student engineers designed their best robots, presented their engineering journals and gave presentations to judges. And lastly, these student designed robots then competed in fierce competition.  As one would expect, the competition was very strong and teams gave it their all.

At the end of qualification matches, four Olympia School District teams fought their way into the semifinals, with Capital High School’s team 9876, ‘The Countdown” earning the 3rd place alliance captain’s spot, out of 12 possible spots in the Semifinals,  

After intense semifinal play, only one Olympia School District team reached the finals, team 8548, Oly Cannoli  from Olympia High School and their alliance won it all and earned themselves a berth at the FTC State competition.

There are other ways for teams to  move on to the FTC state championship and that is through judging and awards.  And one more Olympia High School team did just  that!  Olympia High School, 6424(OlyCow) earned a place at the FTC Washington State Competition by winning the prestigious “Inspire Award.”

It should also be noted that 9876, the Countdown, from Capital High School won the “Judges award.”

Congratulations to teams 6424 (OlyCow) and 8548 (Oly Cannoli) for making it to the FTC Washington State Championship.  Good Luck!

The Washington State FTC Championship is going to be held Sunday, Feb. 11, 2018 at the ShowWare center in Renton, WA.  Robot competition will start sometime after 11:00.

If you would like to see a video of this year’s FTC competition, follow this link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wc1LhG2FEs&t=61s

Robotics FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge) Update – Dec. 2017

Just over a week ago was The  FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge) second district competition at Capital High School.   The Olympia School District had a great showing fielding eight teams out of eighteen teams in the South Sound League.  In a tight race, Olympia High School’s team 6424, “OlyCow” came in first place and Capital High School teams 9876, “The Countdown” took second place, “Oly Cannoli, the Polar Bears, Unbearable and the Avanti Avenger all placed in six of the top seven spots in the South Sound League.  It was an impressive showing for the Olympia School District with six out of the eight OSD teams placing in the top third at the FTC district Competition.

On Dec. 16, the Olympia School district teams will travel to Stewart Middle School in Tacoma to compete in the FTC Inter league championship.  The top teams from the Inter League Championship will qualify for the State Championship on Feb. 11, 2018, at the Showare Center.

This year’s challenge, “Relic Recovery,” has robots reading a cypher, placing glyphs in a crypto box, balancing on a stone, removing the opponent’s jew and placing a relic outside the robot arena. . Between placing glyphs, balancing and placing the relic outside the arena, there is a lot of action going on in these matches.

These teams of students have designed, built  and programed a robot to complete as many of these tasks as possible in 2 ½ minutes.  But that’s not all!   Students will also give a ten minute presentation about their robot, team activities and turn in an engineering journal that includes their robot evolution, CAD designs, outreach and more.

With such a great showing at districts, many of the OSD teams will be headed to state in Feb.  –  And as always….  I will keep you updated with the exciting robot news.

Check out this video to learn more about “Relic Recovery!”  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wc1LhG2FEs&t=2s

FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge) Nov. 4, 2017

This past weekend was The FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge) first district robotics competition at Capital High School School.  The Olympia School District (OSD) had a great showing with eight teams participating in this competitive league.  At the end of the day, Olympia High School’s  team, 6424, “OlyCow” finished in first place and Capital  High school’s team 9876, “The Countdown” finished second.  The Olympia School District had a great showing with four teams finishing in the top five spots.  It should be noted that the Olympia School District fielded eight  teams out of the total 18 teams in the FTC South Sound Lovelace league.  Six of the eight OSD teams finished in the top half of the league.  The November 4, competition was a great showing for The Olympia School District.

On Dec. 2, the Olympia School District robotics teams return and compete in their second district FTC competition at Capital High School.  Competition will be fierce and it will be fun.  If you would like to see these exciting robots “In action!!!”   Matches start at 11:00 in the Capital High School Commons.

This year’s challenge, “Relic Recovery,” has robots reading a secret cypher code and then picking up and placing the glyphs in a particular pattern in a crypto box based off the cypher code.   During the endgame (the last 30 seconds of the match) robots place a relic outside the field at one, two or three feet to earn extra points.  So, between placing glyphs in the correct sequence and dropping the relic at the correct distance, there is a lot of action going on in these matches.

At all three OSD high schools, teams of students have designed, built  and programed a robot to read the cypher code and place glyphs in the crypt obox in Relic Recovery within a 2 ½ minutes time frame.  But that’s not all!   Students will also give a ten minute presentation about their robot, and team activities to a panel of judges and turn in an engineering journal that includes their robot evolution, CAD designs, programming, outreach and more.  Teams that compete well, present to the judges well and have a well written engineering journal will move on to the Washington State Competition in February.

Check out this video to learn more about “Relic Recovery!”  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wc1LhG2FEs

Capital High Schools’ FTC team “The Countdown” qualifies for Super Regionals

Capital High School’s team 9876, “The Countdown” earned their way to the the FTC Super Regionals Competition at the Tacoma Convention Center on March 10-12.  “The Countdown” will be joining Olympia High School’s team “Oly Cow” at this prestigious event.  This is the first time in the robotics history of The Olympia School District that two different high school have both qualified for this exciting competition.

This year’s FTC robotics challenge, “Velocity Vortex,” has robots scooping up and shooting particles (whiffle balls) into a vortex in the center of the field and for the last thirty seconds of each match, robots can pick up the cap balls which are two feet in diameter, Between shooting particles and lifting cap balls, there is a lot of action going on in these matches.

These two teams of students have designed, built  and programed a robot to complete as many of these tasks as possible in 2 ½ minutes.  But that’s not all!   Students will also give a ten minute presentation about their robot, and team activities and turn in an engineering journal that includes their robot evolution, CAD designs, outreach and more.

Check out this video to learn more about “Velocity Vortex!”  

If you would like to see these robots compete, The FIRST Super-Regional Championship is March, 10-12, 2017, at the Tacoma Convention Center (1500 Broadway, 98402).  

Olympia High School team qualifies for Robotics Super Regionals

On Feb. 4, 2017 at the Showare Center in Kent, The Washington State FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge) Robotics Championship was held.   The Olympia School District had three teams qualify for this State competition:  Capital High Schools “The Count Down,” and Olympia’s High School’s, Oly Cow and the Bear Necessities. All three teams were very competed fiercely at State

After a day of intense robot game play and focused presentations, Olympia High School’s Oly Cow won the Motivate award and earned their way to the “Super” Regional Robotics Competition.  13 states from the western US, will be competing at Super Regionals and Oly Cow will one of the teams representing Washington State.  Earning the Motivate award is not easy, it is challenging and requires a lot of community outreach and service. Here are some of the criteria a team must demonstrate in order to win the Motivate award:

• Demonstrate respect and Gracious Professionalism toward everyone they encounter at an FTC event.   
• Demonstrate the successful recruitment of new teams, mentors, coaches and volunteers who are not otherwise active within the STEM community.  
• Articulate the individual contributions of each team member, and how these attribute to the overall success of the Team.
• All team members participate in their presentation, and actively engage with the judges.  

This year’s FTC robotics challenge, “Velocity Vortex,” has robots scooping up and shooting particles (whiffle balls) into a vortex in the center of the field and for the last thirty seconds of each match, robots can pick up the cap balls which are two feet in diameter, Between shooting particles and lifting cap balls, there is a lot of action going on in these matches.

Teams of students have designed, built  and programed a robot to complete as many of these tasks as possible in 2 ½ minutes.  But that’s not all!   Students will also give a ten minute presentation about their robot, and team activities and turn in an engineering journal that includes their robot evolution, CAD designs, outreach and more.

Check out this video to learn more about “Velocity Vortex!”  

The FIRST Super-Regional Championship will to be held March, 10-12, 2017, at the Tacoma Convention Center (1500 Broadway, 98402).