The Enterprisers robotics team to compete in regional championships March 24-26

Robotics Team 5326, The Enterprisers, composed of middle and high school students from Reno and Virginia City, will compete in the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) West Super-Regional Robotics Championship March 24-26 in Oakland, Calif.

The Enterprisers finished third in the Nevada State Championship in Las Vegas, and sixth in the competitive Northern California Regional Championship in the Bay Area to qualify for Super-Regionals. The Enterprisers are the only Nevada team to advance.

The West Super-Regional takes place at the Oakland Convention Center, where the top 72 teams from the western United States will compete.

Nearly 1,000 teams competed at more than 80 Qualifying and Championship Tournaments taking place in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming during the 2015-2016 FTC season. The top teams from the U.S. Super-Regionals, along with teams advancing from international championships, will advance to the FTC World Championship April 27-30 in St. Louis, Mo.

The Enterprisers are sponsored by Google, Mountain View, Calif.; Jeremy Cole, Virginia City Highlands; PTC, Needham, MA; Northern Nevada Allergy, Reno; Ingrid Lubbers, DDS, Reno. If The Enterprisers qualify for Worlds, additional sponsors will be needed and appreciated. If you would like to help, please contact Coach Patti Poston, CoachPatti@FTCteam5326.com.

The 2015-2016 FIRST Tech Challenge Sponsors include Official Program Sponsor Rockwell Collins, Official IoT, CAD, Collaboration Software Sponsor, PTC, and Official Control System Sponsor, Qualcomm.

Playing At Learning, FIRST’s Northern California FTC Affiliate Partner is the host organizer for the West Super-Regional.

FIRST Tech Challenge is a robotics program for grades 7 through 12 that promotes project-based learning. Using a proven formula to engage student interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), FTC is one of the fastest-growing programs of its kind in the world. FTC is highly-scalable and easily integrates into the classroom with measurable results. FIRST teams engage business, engineering, and science professionals, and working together, become a focal point of the community in which they live.

Using a combination of motors, controllers, wireless communications, metal gears, and sensors, including infrared tracking (IR) and touch sensors, students program their robots to operate in both autonomous and driver-controlled modes on a specially designed field.

The 2015-2016 game, FIRST RES-QSM, is modeled after rescue situations faced by mountain explorers all over the globe. Played by two Alliances of two robots each, robots will score points by “resetting” Rescue beacons; delivering Rescue Climbers to a shelter; parking on the mountain; and parking in the Rescue beacon repair zone or floor goal.

Robots may also score points by retrieving debris from the playing field and placing them in mountain or floor goals, and by hanging from a pull-up bar during the last 30 seconds of a match.