The varsity robotics team made it to the finals as part of an alliance at a FIRST NC district event in Winterville over the past weekend. The team finished in second. This is the first time that a CA FRC team has reached the final in a tournament.

CA began the quarterfinals captaining the #6 seed and had to play against the #3 seed. The alliance partners chosen were Cortechs and Green Hope. All playoff matches are best 2 out of 3 games. The alliance won and moved on to the semis against the #7 seed, whom they beat to move into the finals.

Despite losing the finals, CA won two awards: the Judges Award and Hard Hat Award (a type of safety award). CA also got silver medals for everyone in its alliance. Best of all, CA’s performance in this tournament ranks them 3^rd in the state.

CA’s next tournament is March 24-25 at SE Raleigh Magnet High School, 2600 Rock Quarry Road, Raleigh. Matches run from about 10am-6pm each day.

Team members at this latest event:

• Co-captains Caleb Norfleet ’17 (driver)
• Co-captain Thomas Hoffmann ’17 (drive coach)
• Ben Humphries’18 (driver)
• Vincent Wang ’18 (pilot)
• Shaan Dhawan ’18 (human player)
• Josh Pullen ’18 (safety captain)
• Shane Hoffman ’18 (media/branding)
• Robert Schellenberger ’18 (mascot, scouting)
• Cameron Fisher ’19 (scouting captain)
• Amy Chang ’19 (scouting)
• Ethan Norfleet ’20 (scouting)

Members unable to attend:

• Ross Matton ’18 (outreach captain)
• Chris Toy ’18
• Jay Chang ’18
• Claudia Zimmerman ’19
• Cameron Latta ’17

This past weekend the JV robotics teams completed their regular season competitions. The team competes in the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC). FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is the international organization that runs robotics competitions.

CA’s teams Q (gold) and ChargerBots (blue) competed at the Trinity School of Durham and Chapel Hill. Team Q ended the qualifying rounds with a record of 1-4, and was not selected by one of the top four alliances to participate in the playoff rounds. The ChargerBots raced to a record of 4-1. This performance meant the team ended the qualifying round as the third-seeded team, and the right to captain an alliance going into the playoffs. Their alliance fought hard against the second-seeded alliance, both winning a match to force the round into a tie-breaking third match, which they lost.

During the awards ceremony, Team Q was named as finalists for the Connect Award, in addition to the Control Award (mastering robot intelligence), and the Motivate Award (sparking others to embrace the culture of FIRST). The ChargerBots were named as second runner-up for the Inspire Award, the highest achievement awarded at FTC tournaments, which recognizes teams that fully embody the challenge of the program. The ChargerBots earned a spot in the state tournament to be held at North Carolina A&T on Feb. 18.

Two weeks ago, CA’s teams Q ChargerBots participated in the Cardinal Gibbons Qualifying tournament, where both teams struggled throughout the day with technical problems. The day ended with the ChargerBots unable to earn a spot in the playoff rounds, while Team Q was selected to join an alliance and play in the semi-finals. They were knocked out in that round by the eventual winners of the tournament. Team Q was named as the runner-up for the Connect Award, which recognizes a team’s outreach in sharing STEM in the community.