The Tallulah Falls School Robotics Club competed in several qualification matches on Saturday at Lakeview Academy in Gainesville, winning four of the five ahead of next Saturday’s league tournament.
In what marked the fifth meet of the season for TFS Robotics, also known as Universal Robotics, Team 11562, the team excelled to win by an impressive margin over a pair of the best teams. Tallulah Falls participates in the North Georgia League of FIRST’S FTC Robotics.
“We brought our ‘A game’ and won four of five qualification matches,” says Scott Davis, coach of TFS Robotics. “Together with the number four team in one qualifier, we set the meet High Score of 161 points and contributed over 100 of the 161 points for the qualifier, and bested the top two teams — who were partnered together — by 42 points.”
In the meets, each qualification match pairs two teams against two teams in a red or blue alliance. A partner for one qualifier may be a competitor in a later one. Four teams at a time compete on a field that is based on a theme for the season. This year is ‘Imagining the Future of Sustainable Energy.’
Only the top-10 qualification matches count toward standing for state competition. At the tournament, the top four teams for the season get to pick a partnering team to accompany them to state. These are often but not always the next four teams. Last year the four team picked the 12th team because they believed they complimented each other well.
Members of TFS Robotics include:
- *Nana Amankwah, captain/driver
- *Seungwook Shin, driver
- *Yen Chou, lead programmer, coach
- *Lily Desta, human player/ notebook editor
- William Greene, programmer
- Camden Elrod
- *Luka Kutateladze, pit crew
- Amy Ma
- Joseph McGahee, built robot/3D design and printer
- Ethan Simmons
- Gabe Smith
- Aiden VanOrman
- *William Xu, pit crew
*present at Meet 5
The upcoming league tournament is Saturday, January 21 at Mt. Paran. The February 24 State Championship participants will be chosen at the league tournament.
