BALLSTON SPA — The Ballston Spa High School’s FIRST Robotics team earned an invitation to the 2019 FIRST Championship event in Detroit at the end of April at both the NY Tech Valley FIRST Robotics Regional Competition at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the CNY FIRST Robotics Regional Competition at SUNY Poly in Utica.
At the NY Tech Valley Regional, the team made it to the quarterfinals and earned the Chairman’s Award, the most prestigious award at FIRST, which honors the team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate and best embodies the purpose and goals of FIRST.
At the CNY Regional, the Ballston Spa High School’s FIRST Robotics team made it to the semi-finals and earned both the Safety Award and the Engineering Inspiration Award. This Engineering Inspiration award reflects the work that the team does in inspiring younger students through efforts like mentoring FLL and FTC teams, promoting participation in the Elementary Science & Engineering Fair, and teaching elementary students how to do computer coding, among other activities. The Engineering Inspiration Award comes with a donation from NASA that will pay for the team’s registration fee for the 2019 FIRST Championship.
FIRST Robotics Competitions combine the excitement of sport with the rigors of science and technology. Under strict rules, limited resources, and time limits, teams of 25 students or more are challenged to raise funds, design a team “brand”, hone teamwork skills, and build and program robots to perform prescribed tasks against a field of competitors. The 2019 robotics challenge Destination Deep Space has an outer space theme and involves two alliances of three teams each competing to place hatch covers and rubber balls or “cargo” on rockets and cargo ships before returning to their platform to climb at the end of the match.
The Ballston Spa High School’s FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) Team 3044 will be hosting a Pizza/Mac ’n Cheese Night and Silent Auction on April 3, 2019 from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the high school cafeteria to help raise funds for their trip to the 2019 FIRST Championship event in Detroit. Additional information about the event can be found on the events calendar at www.bscsd.org.
The district’s Robotics initiative is possible based on the support from the Ballston Spa National Bank to fund $6,000 towards the team’s participation in the annual US FIRST Robotics competition. Additional sponsors for the 2018 - 2019 season include GLOBALFOUNDRIES/Town of Malta Community Foundation, Malta Business & Professional Association, Technical Building Services, CSArch, Ballston Spa Education Foundation, Union Fire Company and TCT Federal Credit Union.
The High School Robotics Team 3044 website is: frcteam3044.team or visit the FIRST Robotics website directly at www.firstinspires.org for additional details.
