FTC - First Tech Challenge
FIRST Tech Challenge , formally FIRST VEX Challenge
We use it as a step between the junior high school Lego team and the high school Robotics team. As we have new students arrive from Lego's or other areas we use the VEX robot so they can get use to High school robotics. The full size robotics can be intimidating to younger students, but with the ease of assembly of the FTC Kit they can build a robot in a few hours and test it. It has many of the same sensors as the big robot and also uses the same type of programming.
2007 Team 1322 helped sponsor a VEX competition at Southwestern High School in
Flint Michigan. This was also the first year of our Vex team and they called
themselves The Vexstream. They finished second at this competition and won best
design award. In this game they have a 15 second autonomous mode in which their
robot was able to place two balls in a goal that was 12 inches tall. They were
able to do this almost every match.
During the match play they were able to pick
up three balls at a time and place them in their goals. There was also a 36 inch
ball that they had to push on to their side. They were able to do this very
well, their robot used four large tractor type wheels with four drive motors to
do their pushing. Along with our very talented drivers we came vextremly close
to winning first place. Although this was not a FIRST sponsored event the
winner did qualify to go to Atlanta for the finals. Because we won the award and
finished second we were asked to go to Atlanta also. Unfortunately we did not
have the funds for the trip. But what a great experience for the team.