Dougherty County high school robotics team gearing up for district competition

ALBANY — It wasn’t the robot from the old television show “Lost in Space,” but Albany Technical College’s Georgia FIRST Titans Alliance robotics team on Thursday showed the Albany Rotary Club the next best thing.

The little robot that rolled around in the Doublegate County Club ballroom fascinated the Rotarians, but served a greater purpose than entertainment. It provided valuable experience to the students who built it from scratch.

The FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is an international high school robotics competition. Each year, teams of high school students and mentors work during a six-week period to build game-playing robots that weigh up to 120 pounds. Robots complete tasks such as scoring balls into goals, flying discs into goals, inner tubes onto racks, hanging on bars, and balancing robots on balance beams.

The game changes yearly, keeping the excitement fresh and giving each team a more level playing field. While teams are given a standard set of parts, they are also allowed a budget and encouraged to buy or make specialized parts. FRC is one of four robotics competition programs organized by FIRST.

Next month, four district tournaments will be held statewide. The local district competition is scheduled for March 17-19 at the Albany Civic Center. The other district sites are in Columbus, Dalton and Kennesaw. Twelve teams from each district will advance to the Peachtree District State Championship event at the University of Georgia on April 14-16.

The local team will be made up of students from the four Dougherty County high schools in addition to Terrell and Calhoun counties.

The idea is to reach out to and get students interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) related areas, and hopefully into engineering related fields.

“Most of them don’t know, but students have a better chance at getting an engineering degree than they do having a career in professional sports,” Jud Savelle, local Georgia FIRST district coordinator ,said. “We will have 24 teams coming into Albany from around the state to compete in the regionals. My dream is to have the Civic Center filled with kids. This is more than just a robotics competition, this is about soft skills and learning how to work with others.

“It’s the peer mentorship that keeps you going. It’s a great thing for Albany.”

The game this year is called “Stronghold.” Robots are to storm their opponents’ castles and earn points by flinging “boulders” and breaking down defenses.

Savelle said the Titans’ team still needs help in the forms of cash, engineering mentors and volunteers.

“We are trying to raise $30,000 for our competition in Albany,” Savelle said. “We also need some engineers to help mentor the team and we’ll take any volunteers we can get, but we most need people who have STEM backgrounds.”