Robotics Teams Take Regional Awards

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At the recent Regional FTC Robotics Competition, Dominican’s two robotics teams won awards in competition that drew 19 teams from across the state. Dominican was one of two all-girl teams at the regionals held March 4 at University of New Orleans Human Performance Center.

Dream Machine won First Place for the Motivate Award and Third Place for the Connect Award. Digibots took Third Place for the Think Award.

Dream Machine: Brooke Boyd, Lauren Cage, Nicole Girau, Kate Heller, Nia Hudson, Logan Jackson, Kayla Nguyen, Abigayle Rainey, and Anita Whitner.

Digibots: Catherine Bickerton, Victoria Chan, Olivia Cheung, Kelly Jackson, Mia Nguyen, Allie Norvell, Onyinyechi Okeke, Heather Ordoyne, Ariana Prator, Indya Taylor, and Jose Wood.

Coaches are Crissy Giacona, Head Coach; Matt Foss, Programming; and Madelyn Maldonado, Engineering Notebook.

Motivate Award

Sparking others to embrace the culture of FIRST! This Team embraces the culture of FIRST and clearly demonstrates what it means to be a Team. This judged award celebrates the Team that exemplifies the essence of the FIRST Tech Challenge competition through Team building, Team spirit and exhibited enthusiasm. This is a Team who makes a collective effort to make FIRST known throughout their school and community, and sparks others to embrace the culture of FIRST.

Connect Award

This judged award is given to the Team that most connects with their local science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) community. A true FIRST Team is more than a sum of its parts, and recognizes that engaging their local STEM community plays an essential part in their success. The recipient of this award is recognized for helping the community understand FIRST, the FIRST Tech Challenge, and the Team itself. It has a clear business or strategic plan and has identified steps to achieve their goals.

Think Award

This judged award is given to the team that best reflects the journey the Team took as they experienced the engineering design process during the build season. The Engineering Section of the notebook is the key reference for judges to help identify the most deserving Team. The Team’s Engineering Section must focus on the design and build stage of the Team’s Robot. Journal entries must include those describing the underlying science and mathematics of the Robot design and game strategies, the designs, re-designs, successes, and opportunities for improvement.