Drive Team Captain Jared Di Carlo makes some final adjustments to the robot during the contest with team members Hayden Hendrix and Nate Bersing. All photos by Sarah Crisp.
The Techno Ticks, Lyme-Old Lyme High School’s FIRST Robotics Team, brought home the winner’s trophy in a hard-fought weekend of competition over Feb. 28-March 1.
Team 236 competed against 34 teams from across Connecticut and as far away as New Jersey, in a two-day competition at Wilby High School in Waterbury, Conn. This was the first competition of the season and the Tick’s unrivalled “autonomous” play and “Big 6” ability saw them rack up the highest points of any game to leave them as clear leaders after the first day’s 62 qualifying rounds.
Team 236 members Aiden, Norm and Ethan celebrate as the Techno Ticks win their final game to take home the Waterbury District Championship
With the storm closing in, organizers ran the first day late so there were just six qualifying matches on Sunday and the Ticks held on to their substantial lead, going into the quarter-finals as Alliance Leaders. They chose two teams to play with in their “Red Alliance”; Team 230 the Gaelhawks from Shelton, CT and Team 3464 Sim-City from Simsbury, CT.
An ever-present Bill Derry – Tech Ed teacher, long term mentor and co-founder of the Techno Ticks – watches as the team produce another “big six” stack.
After exciting quarter and semi-finals, the Tick’s Red Alliance was pitted against Team 237, Black Magic, Team 558 Robo Squad and Team 4557 – the FullMetal Falcons from Middletown, Conn. The Red Alliance came home champions in a hard-fought best-of-three match, which was a close call to the last second.
Senior Jared Di Carlo who has been a four year starter on the Techno Ticks as well as a three year starter on FIRST Lego League Middle School Team the Luna Ticks, with Mom and team Mentor Ellen, an electrical engineer at Electric Boat.
As well as taking home the winner’s trophy, the team was also honored to be awarded the Motorola Quality Award. The Techno Ticks have won this award for two years running for the robustness of their design and the quality of their engineering.
Drive Team member Nate Bersing and Scouting Captain Tom Crisp collect the Motorola Quality Award on behalf of the team.
The FIRST Robotics Competition is an international program; For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology. It brings together high school students from across the world with mentors who have wide experience in all forms of engineering, manufacturing, business and education.
Each January, FIRST launches a new game, giving teams just six weeks to decide on a game-play strategy and then design, build and test a life-size robot to compete against other teams at District, Regional and International levels. It is known across the world as “The Sport of the Mind”.
Members of the Drive Team collect their well earned awards: Sam Winter, Hayden Hendrix, Nate Bersing and Jared Di Carlo.
This year’s game is called Recycle Rush® and demands precision engineering as robots collect and stack totes and recycling cans as well as “litter” from the field (in the form of green pool noodles). Each game lasts two minutes and 30 seconds and the first 15 seconds are played in “autonomous” mode where the robots are pre-programmed to carry out a series of moves to score points. In the following two minutes and 15 seconds, the drive team use a computer to control the robot to score the maximum number of points they can for their alliance. If you want to see the Techno Ticks robot in action, click here.
Any individuals or organizations interested in helping Team 236 should contact Jon Goss (jgoss@region18.org). Support comes in many forms; sponsorship, mentoring, organizing and coming to games to support the team.
The Techno Ticks are grateful for their main sponsors Dominion Millstone Power Station as well as support they have received from the Administration and staff at Lyme-Old Lyme High School, the Region 18 Board of Education, Lyme-Old Lyme Education Foundation, Brooks Engineering and Aerocision Engineering