This season, the Mechanical Mounties Robotics Team went to Mount Anthony Middle School and won the title of Bennington Qualifier FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Tech Challenge.
FIRST Robotics is a non-profit company dedicated to inspiring students to pursue education in STEM fields further. They aim to accomplish this via yearly engineering challenges, including the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC).
This year, the challenge was to create a robot that could pick up, store, and shoot three five-inch wiffle balls into a basket about three to four feet in the air.
Despite coding and mechanical problems, the Mechanical Mounties were seeded 20th out of 24 at their first competition in early January. However, due to severe weather, they were not able to attend their second Massachusetts competition at Western New England University.
Instead, the Mechanical Mounties had to travel to Mount Anthony School in Vermont, where they faced approximately twelve other schools from Vermont and Massachusetts. During each match, the Mounties’ robot joined another school’s creation to face two challengers.
After five matches, the Mounties earned 4th place, earning them a spot in the playoffs. The top four-ranked teams each chose a partner from the remaining teams to form a permanent alliance for the rest of the competition. The Mechanical Mounties were chosen by the Wired Cats from Vermont Academy.
The alliance lost their first playoff match, but needed two losses to be disqualified. The Mounties and their ally rallied and won every match after, making it to the finals where they won a stunning second-place title. Additionally, the judges selected them for the Innovate Award for making a well-designed robot despite being a small team with limited funding.
