Four metro Albany teams and their robots headed to state championship

ALBANY — Six years ago, when Dougherty High School first formed its Tro-Tek Warriors Georgia FIRST Robotics team, it seemed like a cool thing for geeks. A year later, Dennis Courtney arrived at Albany Technical College and put together the Titan Alliance for ATC.

Since then, the region has seen six other robotics teams form, and that growth was evident this past weekend during the Peachtree District Qualifying event at the Albany Civic Center. Thirty-five teams from across the state hauled their robots and associated skills to Albany, and eight earned sports in the Peachtree State Championship — including Albany, Monroe, Westover and Lee County high schools

That’s the most teams the Albany metro area has ever qualified for state, which will feature 45 teams and is set for April 5-8 at the University of Georgia’s Stegeman Coliseum.

Courtney, a Students Achieving Success in Engineering Technology instructor at Albany Tech, has been a major force in developing the area’s robotics initiatives and has had a front-row seat watching the various programs develop.

“What we saw last weekend (at the Civic Center), that right there is what this is all about,” Courtney said. “We placed four out of eight teams at state, and that is a testimony to Albany Tech and Destination Einstein. It’s one reason two rookie teams (Albany and Lee County) made it to state.”

Destination Einstein is one of Georgia’s unique programs that is all about helping teams on their journey to the Einstein (Championship) Field. The program features four FIRST Robotics Competition playing fields throughout the state with complete sets of field elements. These fields are available for all teams to use.

Georgia FIRST and Courtney helped establish the DE facility at Albany Tech earlier this year.

According to the GeorgiaFirst website: “We call FIRST Robotics Competition the ultimate sport for the mind. High school student participants call it ‘the hardest fun you’ll ever have.’”

Under strict rules, limited resources and an intense six-week time limit, teams of students are challenged to raise funds, design a team “brand,” hone teamwork skills and build and program industrial-sized robots to play a difficult field game against like-minded competitors.

It’s as close to real-world engineering as a student can get. Volunteer professional mentors lend their time and talents to guide each team. Each season ends with an exciting FIRST Championship.

“I’d also like to congratulate the Monroe Terminators for winning the Chairman’s Award, which is given to the team that sustains superior performance over a period of time. That’s really cool and hard to come by,” Courtney said. “Westover did well and was part of the district’s winning alliance.”

Courtney added that the competition is about more than building a better robot.

“This is really about getting our kids involved in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) disciplines,” he said. “We think it’s important to get this stuff out of the classroom, and DE has a lot to do with it. It provides team-building skills and hands-on experience in a fun environment. The robot is the hook. Once the kids experience it, they usually become interested in STEM.

“STEM is critical to our nation. We are falling behind the rest of the world in science and math, and we will have challenges in the future it we don’t fix it now.”

Jud Savelle, one of the organizers of the Albany event, said the region’s programs couldn’t have had a better weekend.

“Oh, there’s no doubt the weekend was huge for us, especially seeing the girls on the Monroe team win the Chairman’s Award,” he said. “The competition went off without a hitch.”

Prior to the beginning of competition, Procter & Gamble donated $50,000 to the program. Courtney said those funds will be used to travel to Athens, lodging, entry fees and meals for the teams.

“This competition was created to inspire these high school students to use creativity, innovation and the sheer determination to build robots to accomplish specific tasks,” Local District Planning Committee Chairman Rob Collins said. “These students are the best of the best of what we’ve got.”