Southwest Georgia schools display robotic talents at Albany tournament

ALBANY — Several area schools showed off their robotic prowess at the FIRST Robotics Peachtree Qualifier tournament here over the weekend, with at least one assured of a spot in the state tournament this week in Macon.

The Commodore Conyers College and Career (4C) Academy came away with the Engineering Innovation Award, which in and of itself gave the 6919 Commodores a place at the state meet. The team also was a member of the alliance, along with the Mill Creek Steel Talons and Atlanta International School IHOT teams that won the finals in match play at the Albany Civic Center. The Commodores also were members of the winning alliance in their other qualifying tournament event in Columbus.

“The Westover (Comprehensive High School) 5828 team made it to the semifinals,” said Rob Collins, founder and CEO of Albany-based NEOS cybersecurity and IT support company and organizer for the Peachtree Qualifier tournament held over the weekend. “They have a great coach, Corey Moore, who has done an excellent job with them. The Deerfield-Windsor Giga Knights are ranked 25th in the state.”

The Entrepreneurship Award, one of the 15 judged awards given for the tournament, went to the Worth County High School iRambots team. Rounding out the local teams at the Albany tournament hosted by Procter & Gamble were the Lee County High School Trobots.

While 4C is assured of a spot at state, there is a possibility that some of the other local teams could get a berth, Collins said. The number of spots for the state tournament has been pared back this year due to COVID-19.

But at least the teams were back in action after two years when the pandemic caused cancellation of the four district qualifying tournaments held around the state.

Local schools have been successful in fielding teams and on the field of play, and are showing they can be competitive with big schools in the Atlanta area, Collins said.

“When we started the program, we were not competitive,” he said. “But when we added 4C and their shop/build (facility) came on board, it made a difference.”

The Albany college and career academy, which started operations five years ago, provides a shop area and field facilities that are used by schools in Dougherty and other surrounding counties.

“Local teams have become competitive with all of the teams in the state,” Collins said.

He invited schools looking to get into robotics to contact him at robert.collins@leverageNEOS,com.

“I’d be glad to help if there’s anyone out there who would like to do this for their school or 4-H camp or their Boy Scouts,” he said. “We really need to ramp up skills for our work force.”

All of the Dougherty County School System’s schools now field robotics teams, starting with Lego robotics in elementary school. That provides a pipeline of students who will advance to the FIRST Robotics teams that compete at the high school level, Collins said.

File Photo: Alan Mauldin